Fate: Zero Release
by Wwrath
Summary: Only weeks before the 4th Holy Grail War, a worldwide pulse of unidentifiable energy seems to have warped the summoning ritual, leaving seven Masters to deal with teenage heroes and demigods from an entirely different layer of reality, not to mention the War itself. (Homestuck characters (around the age 16-17 time period) end up as Servants. Hilarity and tragedy ensues.)
1. Those Who Grasp At Heaven's Gates (1)

א

_twenty miles from anyone, set my sights on the setting sun_

_heaven talks, but not to me, 'cause heaven knows that nothing good comes free_

_desolation, tragedy, is there nothing good in me?_

_imagine dragons - release_

* * *

[THE AUTHOR SPEAKS: I've gone over this chapter to fix a couple of details that I'm embarrassed to say _did not _jive with the canon Nasuverse, although if I were you I wouldn't expect everything to work quite the same way. See, if I'm breaking the rules on _purpose, _then I'm all for it, but accidents... A few other things got tweaked, basically just those tiny things that improve a sentence's flow, etc. Anyway, onward!]

* * *

The voice of a young man driven to great lengths by rejection rings through a small clearing of grass and foliage.

"Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Fill. Five perfections for each repetition. Let the filled sigils be destroyed in my stead!"

Beneath the ground, where dust has long cleared from the tools of magi and a man lost in himself, the voice of a man whose purpose was decided from his very birth shows only dedication and confidence.

"Ye first, O silver, O iron. O stone of the foundation, O Archduke of the contract. Hear me in the name of our great teacher, the Archmagus Schweinorg. Let the descending winds be as a wall. Let the gates in all directions be shut, rising above the crown, and let the three-forked roads to the Kingdom revolve."

Amongst low mountain flora, a voice continues, rising with vindictive hope.

"Set. Let thy body rest under my dominion, let my fate rest in thy blade. If thou would submit to the call of the Holy Grail, if thou wilt obey this mind, this reason, then thou shalt respond."

At the center of a simple room in a great castle where a circle far simpler than many has been drawn, the voice of a slayer of the fallen rebounds from stone walls.

"I make my oath here. I am one who is to become the virtue of all Heaven. I am one who is cloaked in the evils of all of Hell."

In a house of cruelty and madness, a broken man continues his chant, ignoring the trails of blood that run from his remaining eye.

"Yet, thou serves with thine eyes clouded in chaos. Thou, bound in the cage of madness, I am he who commands those chains -"

In the workshop which shines with the light of unfathomable prana and the boundless intent of that man for whom legacy is no less than sacred, a chant comes at last to an end.

"Thou seven Heavens, clad in a trinity of words, pass through the restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance!"

In many places, the great and the small alike await the arrival of their champions.

If what happens next were not so far beyond the explanation of almost any living thing, the Clock Tower and its rival Church might have spent more effort failing to cloak its mystery than any other event within known memory.

For but a moment, in the very souls of all living things, arise colors beyond imagination, the surge and release of something both less and more than the magic of the very world itself, and a thrill of fear fills the hearts of seven whose dreams stand opposed to all others.

In many places, the words of heroes begin to confirm the allegiance of their summoners.

* * *

There's really nothing left to do now but watch the shadow of the figure rising from the circle. In an instant you've received the basic information given to those who dare to grasp at Heaven's gates, and you know that this is it: there's a chance you could win. It's true that the servant taking shape even now is the Rider of this war, but there's no real rule to say only one of 'mighty' knight classes can actually claim victory, and the raw data on your servant's parameters... Maybe they're not the most impressive, but that A-ranked strength is an asset, it could definitely be worse overall, and if there's anyone in the world who wants to believe in the idea that even the weakest natural aptitude can surpass others through skill and effort, well, that's you.

"Hey, are you okay? You're just staring at me, and it's kind of creeping me out. Oh right, I still need an answer to that sort of basic thing... I don't think you even heard me the first time." The one who stands before you scratches at tangled black hair, looking sort of lost. "Right, that Servant stuff. I think I'm supposed to ask something... Oh, right! So, are you my Master, or are you just some guy who's really into... uh... killing chickens, I guess?"

Somehow, you thought your Servant would be bigger. Somehow, you didn't expect your servant to be wearing blue pajamas. Somehow, you thought your Servant would be _older than you._

Tangled black hair, a dark complexion, buck-teeth, thick glasses... But more importantly, this kid looks like he shouldn't even have made it through secondary school. If he's any less than two years younger than you, then something's gone really wrong with your eyes. Is this seriously the Servant that bastard 'teacher' was aiming for? Are you just missing something obvious? Who is he, anyway? You can't even begin to guess.

Blue eyes pierce through your confusion, and for an instant it seems as if the sky itself has turned its gaze on you. Suddenly you remember that you haven't actually claimed your Servant yet, and just as suddenly that thought becomes a lot more important than it was five seconds ago.

"Uh, y-yeah! I'm, that is - yes! I am your Master! W-Waver Velvet! I, Waver Velvet, am definitely -"

A hand clamps down on your shoulder, and all you can think of is how it felt to look into those eyes just seconds ago, the feeling that the sky itself could reach down at any second and tear you from the earth, laughing at pointless concepts like gravity while you asphyxiate in the stratus. The terror that floods your body in an instant is enormous, so far out of proportion to your first impressions that part of you almost wants to laugh.

The boy in blue's fingers squeeze down in a way you'd swear was meant to be reassuring as he crouches in front of you. You don't have the slightest idea of when you fell to your knees, but at least you know why. Anyone who could stand before those eyes without blinking would have to be a monster or a god.

You should be doing something, maybe. Establishing rules, finding out this Servant's - no, _your Servant's_ \- identity. There are probably all kinds of things to do right now, and you might even be doing them if you could force any part of your body to move.

Your Servant grins.

"Okay! Haha, I kinda thought this would be more complicated." For a second you think he's reaching down to grab your hand, and then a fleeting sense of vertigo knocks you out of your paralysis as some force actually raises you to your feet, your clothes and hair billowing until you're upright, bangs fallen across your eyes. Spluttering as you try to brush your face clear, you manage to forget the situation you're in just long enough to cut loose with indignant words.

"What was _that?!_ You're a Servant and I'm your Master, don't just do things without my permiss -" Now you do find your hand being gripped tightly by another's, as Rider rolls his eyes with a smile lacking in even a trace of malice. He's... shaking your hand? That makes some kind of sense, at least. Right? You're fine with it, at least. Maybe Rider won't be too tough to get along with; you've got a strange feeling that's really important.

"I guess for this war thing, my name's supposed to be Rider, but..." The smile turns back into a grin. The only way you can think to describe this kid is 'the primordial nerd.' "Nice to meet you, Waver. I'm John!" Dumbly, you nod as he lets go of your hand. "Waver Velvet, huh? That's a weird name, but also pretty cool? You're British, right? Wait, does that mean... this is Earth?"

Your Servant's eyes slowly widen, like he's only just now realizing something he should have already been told by both the Throne and the Grail. Something he should have known when he was _alive,_ for that matter.

"Is the planet we're on really Earth?!"

In this moment, confronted by a Servant who's only just figured out what _planet_ he's on, whatever that could even _mean,_ you don't have the energy to keep yourself from stumbling off and thudding down onto a park bench to stare up beyond the clouds, at the ceiling of the world that now seems like it really could go on forever.

The truth is, you have no idea whether to be happy, angry, despondent, or confused. No, that's stupid, it's barely a question. The obvious answer is that you're all four at the same time.

* * *

The instant the pulse that shook the world passed through you, you knew that something was seriously, ominously wrong. Your gut feelings will never be more trustworthy than Irisviel, Maiya, or a weapon that you yourself clean and maintain, but the reality is that they've saved your life more times than you can count.

When news reports begin to rush in from countries across the world and it becomes clear that as far as anyone knows, every single human being on the planet - and hell, maybe some others things too - felt that same unknown and truly colossal energy, saw those maddened colors enough to fear for your sanity...

It might not be an exaggeration to say that you're a little bit worried. The stress of this is getting to you, although you'd never let it on; Irisviel doesn't need to see, Maiya surely already knows, and Ilya is too young to really believe that anything could be wrong with her father. But the preparation, tapping contacts for gear enough that you could turn to terrorism in an instant if you wanted to, researching the Grail War... It's hard, harder than it should be. What it really comes down to is that you've gone soft, even if only somewhat, and that can't be accepted.

As much as you despite it, Emiya Kiritsugu will become the Magus Killer once more.

The afternoon of the pulse, Iri came to you in tears, afraid that it was a sign of some sort of defect in her body. You were there for her, in your way, and you were happy to be able to at least put a stop to worries that are probably completely unfounded.

Will that awkwardly caring man cease to exist as you slowly flip switch after switch inside of your mind?

A hand on your arm startles you out of your thoughts, and it occurs to you that getting lost in thought while in the midst of a chant can't be good for ancient and incredibly powerful summoning rituals. It's not like you to lose focus like this. No more time to waste.

"Thou seven Heavens, clad in a trinity of words, pass through the restraining rings, and be thou the hands that protect the balance!"

Neither you or your wife budge an inch at the explosive, twisting river of prana that slowly coalesces into a solid form. The summoning shouldn't be able to fail or distort itself, and for your last operation, you couldn't ask for a better Servant than the King of Knights himself. As ethereal smoke clears, your eyes focus in on... Nothing? It's Iri's tiny gasp that first alerts you to your Servant's presence, probably because most of _your_ field of vision is still a mass of reddish mist.

A red hood, a cloak or cape. Red and red and more shades of red, the brightest forming what seems to be the symbol of a cog or gear on his chest, leaning casually against a stone wall with his hands jammed into pockets you can only barely tell are there at all. He almost looks like he's in a Halloween costume.

But really, if you're being honest with yourself, it's the sunglasses that first catch your attention. You're pretty goddamned sure King Arthur never wore _mirrored aviators._

When the basic statistics filter through your head, you see the Servant's "parameters," and apart from that seriously abysmal luck, you should absolutely have a weapon you can work with, here. The Saber class doesn't disappoint. All that's left for the moment is to make sure the pact is fully sealed. At any second this Servant, who really, really does not seem to be any sort of legendary hero at all, who in fact looks like a sixteen year old kid, ought to be volunteering the question. You'd find out yourself, but you're extremely interested in how he'll kick this ritual off.

But he just stands there, entirely expressionless for over a minute before anyone moves in the slightest. Even you don't know what he's feeling or thinking, and reading faces is a professional skill you've made a point to master over the years. Iri's fingers tighten around your arm. She starts to say something, and the instant that sound leaves her mouth, the Servant cuts her off.

"Eeeeehhhhhh," he says, an accent you'd swear was from the southern United States hiding even in this sound. "What's up, Doc?"

Irisviel slowly lets go of your arm. Neither of you has any idea how to respond. This is bad. Chance and confusion can turn careful plans to ash in an instant, and whoever the hell this kid is, he could probably do the same to you in an instant. A short intake of breath. The hint of uncertainty in your voice frustrates the hell out of you.

"Are you my Servant?" You wonder if a Master has ever had to ask that question before. Hell, for all you know, it happens half the time. Records of the previous wars are either beyond even your abilities to locate, or else they don't exist at all. The boy just watches you, or maybe Iri, those shades make it impossible to tell, then shrugs. His voice is a strange Texan monotone with a sliver of sarcasm that you're instantly sure is there to mask much, much, much _more_ sarcasm.

"Man, I don't know. Probably? This Cup Fight thing is some straight up Battle Royale shit, dude. Well you ain't a teenager, so I guess you'd be that one dickbag who got stabbed in the eye with a pencil or some shit, I don't know, it's been a while. Damn, y'all got a castle or somethin'? I would've thought this fancy crap'd be the opposite of a nice house for a guy who's got killer's eyes and smells like an NRA meetin'."

"Are. You. My. Servant?"

He sighs, very deliberately.

"Yeah, yeah, I, Saber or whatever the fuck, am bound to serve as your personal bitch until we get killed or kill everybody else. Now shut up for a sec, I got business with the lady." Saber withdraws a hand from his pocket and points, not to you but to Irisviel, who barely stops herself once again from taking a step back from something powerful and intimidating.

"Yo, hot albino cougar chick. I got a question for you." He pauses and you're _sure_ he's doing it to maximize his dramatic timing. "Are we on an actual planet Earth?"

"Kiritsu -" Iri tries to say, but the sound of her voice vanishes mid-word as you slam the room's heavy wooden door behind you and storm off through the castle and into the woods.

* * *

You can't help but sigh as the door slams and your entirely mature and reasonable husband leaves to go sulk in the woods. And it will be the woods, you know exactly how he gets.

Then you process that you were just called a 'hot albino cougar chick' by your husband's Servant and completely fail to avoid an awkward blush while you reprimand yourself internally for paying attention to that instead of the far more unsettling question Saber just asked. You don't miss the fact that he doesn't seem to care in the slightest that his Master simply wandered off without saying a word.

"On... Earth?" It's impossible not to pause before continuing. At least this moment's silence is your own doing and not Saber clearly provoking both of you either just for his own amusement or for reasons you don't understand, although you're fairly sure that it was at least mostly the former._ 'Of course we're on Earth,'_ you don't say. Who knows who this Saber is and what he's been through? "Yes, we are."

In an instant, without an actual sound or movement from him, you feel something drastically change in his attitude. The next thing he says remains in that monotone, but unlike before, you're entirely sure that there is nothing lighthearted or mocking here. That sudden drop... You're a complete stranger to this lethal teenager, have barely heard him speak, and suddenly your fear rises again.

"What year is it." Those four words somehow tell you more about him than a thousand might from a 'normal' person. Your fear isn't really for your life, but for what you might be about to learn.

"Nineteen ninety four."_ Almost_ nothing changes. You're not sure that he'd previously moved anything but his lips since he was summoned. Are all Servants so in command of their bodies, or is this boy exceptional? Regardless, his head tilts downwards, almost invisibly. Kiritsugu might be impressed by your progress, or maybe what you see as a tiny motion is a blatant tell to him. Either way, he has helped you learn to read the faces and motions of others, and you consider yourself at least decent at the skill.

But that second tilt of the head somehow changes everything, and your fear begins to melt away. The subtle shift seems to betray a terrible pain and resignation. You consider the fates of more or less every hero in history and wonder what tragedies this Saber has in store.

Said Saber is quiet for what feels like a long time, but is probably less than thirty seconds.

"Well, goddamn if time ain't always givin' me a nice, well-cooked order of confusion with a free side of 'Fuck You,' no, really, Mr. Saber, just accept the charity, you're our number one fuckin' customer." While you can't guess - or rather, don't want to theorize about - what that meant, the bitter sentiment is clear enough. "Wait, wait. Gotta figure out if this Earth's totally batshit. I mean, apart from holdin' fucked up murder tournaments so the one piece of shit that comes out on top of all those corpses gets a goddamned wish granted." You do your best to process this before your thoughts are interrupted. "Okay. Who is the current president of the USA."

Remembering takes a bit of work. It's not as though you've had much use for that knowledge, and after this you sincerely doubt you'll ever need it again. In another life, another world, maybe.

But not this one.

"Bill Clinton," you say, and, flushing slightly more, "I think. He was their president the last time I heard anything about it." Saber looks like he's... well, okay, he looks like he's Saber, but he must be thinking hard about your answer.

"Well, shit, guess I'm about fifteen years early. Now I gotta be all nineties all the time, maybe I should go make some commercials for kids' drinks that turn you into flyin' blobs of mercury. I guess if I think about it this ain't have to be such a bad gig. Just one anonymous death ghost re-deathin' other death ghosts and chillin' in the middle of the most ironic decade possible."

You're briefly quiet, trying to find a less blunt and intrusive way to ask what you want. You give up on that fairly quickly.

"Saber... I suppose it's rude, but... Who are you? What is your true name?"

Even through the sunglasses, you can feel him watching you. You really hope you didn't just earn yourself an instant and pointless death. Time almost seems to slow down, turning every awkward pause into an eternity of anxious thought. And then, in the same monotone that you've now heard and your husband hasn't, one lacking any recognizable emotion at all, he answers.

"My name," he says, "is Saber. I am a sword with a mind that Mr. Blood and Gunsmoke will use to get whatever it is he wants out of the super special totally crazy holy thing. That's it." Another silence. You've already grown to hate this faltering conversation.

"What is your wish, then, Saber, when we obtain the Grail?"

There's no long silence this time.

"Ain't got one," he drawls. "I am one hundred percent stoked with the life that I lived and the world in general. Nice world, nice backstory, everything is just goddamn peachy."

"A hero without any regrets or desires? That doesn't seem very likely."

Apparently you shouldn't have said that.

Saber is now directly in front of you, standing barely a foot and a half away. You never even saw him move. God, you can't even tell if there was some sort of teleportation taking place or if, somehow, he really is simply that fast.

"I," he says very slowly and deliberately, "Am. Not. A. Hero."

And then he's vanished and you stand, shaking in the ritual room, alone with your thoughts (fear? guilt? pity?) and the lonely sensation of scared and baffled tears painting their iridescent trails down the curves of your cheeks.

* * *

This is it. A maelstrom of insanity, unbearable frustration. You've already learned that there's nothing you can do to make your fate any less cruel. You are at your breaking point. No, _beyond_ it; you're living in the world that exists _after_ you've lost your mind. Only shreds of your identity remain, the broken, tattered bits of what was once a proud Magus.

You've reached your second hour of loitering in a small, weird Japanese video rental store, waiting for Rider to finish picking out the worst movies you can even imagine. Using your money. Finally, you know what it is to face true despair. It's facing a half-ghost kid with buck teeth who's just grabbed another awful tape off the shelf with a look on his face like he's already in heaven.

"_Dude_, Last Action Hero _just came out last year_ in this world, I do not even have _words_ for how awesome this is, no, no no this is _necessary_, I am doing you a _huge_ favor."

"Rider, we're in a _war_ -"

His expression changes completely. Rider looks like he just saw the second coming of Christ while you were looking away in disbelief and vague horror. Your Servant, eyes wide and mouth slightly open, reaches toward yet another imported film, and he looks like he just found the damn Grail right here.

"Waver," he says quietly. "This is a sacred moment. Things like this make me wonder if there really is a god somewhere. I mean, like, a super-god, not a god like me, more like the Jesus and stuff kind." In his hands is another film you've never even heard of. Rider all but shoves it in your face. The words _'Con Air'_ are all you have time to see before he clutches in to his chest as though his new life depends on it.

"_Rider,_ for the _last time, we are in a_ -"

"This movie," Rider says slowly, "Isn't supposed to exist until 1997." Raising his head to the sky, or more accurately, toward a vaguely dirty ceiling, he stage whispers a weird little prayer. "Whoever is out there... _thank you_."

Eight movies and honestly a lot more of your funds spent than you think even makes sense, you've managed to talk him into actually_ going home_, although you're really not sure what you'll do with the Mackenzies. Well, making something up that fits nicely with your cover story shouldn't be too difficult. The two of you are just walking - he insists on staying in his physical form, although at least he's replaced the pyjama superhero outfit with blue jeans along with a green jacket over a black t-shirt with some kind of wormy green ghost thing sitting dead center. It's... Well, it's an improvement, at least.

After stopping to get something to drink, again at Rider's insistence, you just... breathe, drink something, try to, hell, you don't know, meditate or something. Something, _anything_, please _god_. Rider's ten feet behind you doing his best not to hurl himself at anything even slightly interesting. You sigh in irritation for what must be the thousandth bloody time today, get halfway through a mouthful of pop, and then spit it out, coughing. Something he said that in the store that you didn't catch just sunk in with full force.

"Wait, _wait_, what do you mean you're a _god!?"_

* * *

The time is finally here. _Zouken_ watches the explosion of prana with idle, sadistic interest. Someday. Someday, somehow, the sick son of a bitch will pay. _You_ watch while struggling to stand upright, fingernails digging into your palms hard enough to break the skin, a futile attempt to distract yourself from the infinitely worse pain of a small worm writhing beneath the flesh of your forehead.

But the ritual really worked. Everything you ever had is gone, even the natural span of your own life, all for your bitter dream of saving _Tohsaka_ Sakura, but it _worked_, and the mad servant called to this house of malice and shadows is _yours_, even if it's almost entirely those unbearable _things_ eating you alive that mostly serve as the true source of prana for what can only be the Berserker of this Heaven's Feel.

As the incredible light begins to fade, your Servant's form fades into view. At first all you can see is a solid, bold, orange silhouette. A flowing robe - or is that a dress? - and a head that must be hooded. The ravaged inside of your lip trickles of copper across your tongue as your teeth press ruthlessly down.

A woman, small, or a teenage girl, obscured by this orange that seems to glow on its own. An emblem of the sun. A face obscured by the hood covering nearly all but the mouth. She seems somehow to embody radiance, light... but something tugs at your mind, a gut instinct that reminds you just a bit of the twisting fear that you can never banish around your disgusting father. A sense of darkness that you had hoped, somehow, your Berserker would lack. When she looks at you, despite what little you can really see of her, you shock yourself by _flinching_, an old and familiar instinct in a strange new context.

"My apologies for the inconvenience, Master," she says, clearly addressing you, a cultured voice, a tone both liquid and precise. Then she actually _curtsies_, one corner of her mouth turned upward to form a small and somehow frightening smile. "Though our... _professional __relationship_ is entirely clear, one ought to at least attempt to respect the customs of a new land and its peculiar cosmos. Therefore, I ask of you: are you my Master?"

You try to take comfort in the fact that even the nightmare of a man across the room from you looks as baffled as you feel. Unfortunately, this is _not_ a situation that leaves any space for confusion.

"Yes," you say, not really sure what tone to use and settling on a sort of firm neutrality. "I, Matou Kariya, am your Master for the duration of this war." Her smile widens and a chill runs down the parts of your spine that can still feel.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Kariya-san. It would appear that the whims of fate have granted me the intriguing alias 'Berserker." There are no words in your head for her quiet laughter. Not a laugh, really, not a chuckle, not a giggle, but something else entirely. "I suppose the title fits, though I must say I find the assignment thoroughly amusing."

"A Berserker should not show such reason," Zouken comments, and your Servant turns to face him. "Indeed, that is a trait that defines the class. Ah, Kariya, to think that even with all of my aid, you have remained true to your nature as a failure of a Magus and managed to pervert this ritual even beyond my own tampering." His smirk transforms another part of you into an abyssal hell of rage and ever-growing despair. You swallow the desire to scream every obscenity imaginable in a single pointless flurry.

"I do not recall I or my Master granting you permission to speak, abomination. Hold your false tongue and you may be fortunate enough to prolong your repulsive existence."

The ensuing silence is unlike any other you can recall in your life. Your _'father'_ stares, and then starts to laugh, the slow chuckle that signals the death of anything good, that pierces the inescapable and impossible dreams your self-deceiving heart can't throw away, that fills you with the helpless urge to _punishrunkillhidechokescreamandBURNITALLANDLAUGHATTHEASHES -_

That chuckle wanes as what appear to be two long sewing needles slide from the sleeves of Berserker's robe with a rustle loud enough to have been deliberate, slipping into practiced hands.

"Kariya-san," the orange-clad enigma says once more, "Causality has made our ideal course of action perfectly clear. Do you happen to harbor any sympathy for monsters? Shall my hand be stayed by misplaced mercy?" Even if you knew what to say, you wouldn't know how to wrench the words free. Zouken opens his mouth, but the Servant cuts him off before he can speak, leaving him more off-balance than you've seen him in your life. As she speaks, her right arm and its strange little weapon rise smoothly to point directly at the old man.

"I'll defer to my own judgment, then. If we're to emerge victorious from this Heaven's Feel, loose ends and garden pests ought to be neutralized as early as is reasonably possible, don't you agree? Yes, I think that you must." She's quiet for a few seconds as an abrupt outpouring of your own prana leaves your body in gasping agony, and then her voice rings out with resonant force that strikes you as almost divine, the signal for an action powerful enough that most Magi would happily kill just to see. Not once before now did you truly understand the amount of weight that two brief words might carry.

_"Gate Breaker."_

The sheer might of the torrent of violet-white that leaves the single needle in Berserker's lazily extended arm actually knocks you off of your feet. You curl into yourself involuntarily, stunned and sightless, riding out smaller pings of pain, more portions of prana transferred...

When the dust has mostly cleared and your working eye's shaken off a momentary blindness, no part of you can believe that what you're seeing is real. Where the cruel and inhuman Magus previously holding _your _leash stood just twenty seconds ago, there's nothing to see but a wide and fascinating smear of blood and scattered bits of singed and lifeless worm-flesh.

A few more lances of pain move through you as smaller rays of a similar blistering purple disintegrate the few stray worms that remain, Berserker sighing in what seems to be mild irritation as she points her needle to them all until only two conscious beings are left in this room that once housed a devil.

In hardly more than an instant, the inescapable punisher of the Matou, the ancient lord of the Makiri, the bane of most of your humiliating and painful life, the rapist-by-proxy of an innocent girl, is no more.

Only memory remains of the 'immortal' creature that was Matou Zouken.

"Now then," Berserker says as she turns to you, "Kariya-san, or 'Master,' if you prefer, I would like to attend to the issue of the parasites inside you. Such base and vile things are no longer necessary. This 'prana' that tethers my body to your planet will be gathered in a less obscene and agonizing fashion."

As her half-cloaked smirk widens, you wonder when you'll be waking up, because no turn of events as beautiful as this could be anything but a dream.

* * *

[THE AUTHOR SPEAKS: I would like to thank the author of Fate/Zero Sense and Fate/Stay Away for writing absolutely fantastic material, inspiring me to write this fic, and inspiring the title structure, which is meant as an homage to those works. You killed my soul, you magnificent bastard, and I dream of someday giving you a serious high-five.]


	2. Those Who Grasp At Heaven's Gates (2)

_petty lies to everyone, in the hopes that i could be someone_

_heaven talks, but not to me, and now i wonder if it's meant to be _

_desolation, tragedy, is there nothing good in me?_

_i've let me down, down, down, down_

_imagine dragons - release_

* * *

_Alone yet connected, laying out bright red, unspoken comfort in violet, green, blue_

_Dark rooms and strange figures, boredom, frustration, a fragile love shattered, a shadow in the xxxxs_

_Curved blades clashing above a burning city, blurs of motion, a molten sky above_

_A meeting of xxx and xxxxx eyes, muddy words spoken, a flash of feathers in the flame_

_Pooled blood and a xxxx of xxxxx, alerts pinging, strange letters, "a clean break"_

_Enormous gears turning, cogs, blistering heat, gaming the system for her, red-orange death below_

_Meaningless evil, a friend's instructions double-edged, choking on 'his' own blood, blank white eyes_

_"COOLK1D" cool yeah xxxxxxxs stay cool "NUM3R4LS OF TH3 BL1ND PROPH3TS" she's crazy so what_

_Vinyl in his head, a black horizon cracked like glass, echoes in the xxxxxxxx of lost souls_

_god damn it xxxx died again cant be so fuckin reckless with that thing oh well back to the xxxxx again_

_"im not a xxxx"_

_"xxxx is"_

_"xxx was"_

_"im not"_

* * *

"...ugu, th... Mai... n't find Sa... please wa-"

Your eyes snap open and, for some reason, you're shaking, trembling. Just barely, but it's there. Instinct is screaming _danger fight get the .s.w.o.-get a gun a knife anything, _and then a familiar warmth and smooth, naked skin pressing against your body, fingers stroking your scalp, more substance and less muscle. Iri, not Maiya. Red eyes, white hair disheveled. The scent of metal from somewhere nearby...

Maiya in the doorway, gun drawn without a finger on the trigger. Your wife reluctantly lets you drag yourself upright. It's harder than it should be, as if something's weighing you down from the inside.

"What's happening? How did... No, it's nothing. What went wrong." Even as you're asking the question, you feel... _off, _like a part of you went missing in the night, like you should be able to reach out towards something intangible and pull it from the empty air.

"Your Servant's gone missing," she says, and you just sigh.

"He's probably in spirit form. Hell, he could be in the room right now."

"No, I don't think so. I happened to pass him in the hall, and asked precisely the question; why was he still materialized simply to wander the castle?" You give her a look and she nods. Yeah, she knows exactly why you've only spoken to the damned kid once and apparently the two of you share an intolerance towards that attitude. "He said, to quote word for word: 'Girl I am realer than Kraft Mayo and I ain't changin' jack shit, ever. Sir Kills-A-Lot can suck it up and deal with blowin' some extra MP."

"You checked everywhere." Do you really even need to ask?

"Of course. Several times. He's just too fast. As soon as he answered, he was a red blur and then... gone. Security footage didn't catch anything. At that point I decided it best to let you know."

"He's on the roof," you mutter. "_Somewhere_ up there, at least." Maiya waits for a response, while Irisviel, holding a blanket over her chest, looks at you with slightly widened eyes. "I'm sure you checked everything there already, but it's where he'd go." After a short pause during which you wonder just why exactly you're so sure of that - and you _are_ sure of it - your mercenary partner nods again and quietly leaves the room. Before you can even stand up and get dressed, Iri locks eyes with you, worried.

"You've been crying," she says, and when you brush a hand across your cheek, it comes away wet.

"No," you say, more quietly than usual, and you haven't, despite the evidence. You know yourself too well to be wrong. "I think somebody else has."

Neither of you has anything more to say about that.

* * *

_Alone yet connected, exhaling bright blue, understanding in red, violet, green_

_Gold everywhere, xxxxxxs spinning in her shining palm, a last message through the xxxx_

_Strange machines, watched by a trusted friend, sequence broken, "Son, I am so proud of you"_

_Dark clouds, shadows, howling wind, strange allies, creatures of pitch smashed into crystal_

_xxxxxx pushing and pushing but hey at least some8ody is, right? right?_

_Green lightning, snarling fang and muscle, ready to fi - cold ice cold gushing red_

_"why not just, let the xxxxxx xxxxxxxx work its gloomy majyyks, and slip away into nothing with -"_

_Black sky above, checkerboard earth below, and the wind begins to gather_

_"as far as i may think i've come... i still don't know what i'm doing"_

_oh, everyone... died, no, not everyone, is that xxxx? does it even matter this time? what should i feel?_

_"F1X TH1S"_

* * *

Blinking, blurry. An unfamiliar ceiling... wait, what? No, you know this ceiling reasonably well. Don't you? Yeah, definitely, you've spent plenty of time staring at it while lying in bed, waiting, thinking. And why does it feel like you've lost something? It's also the middle of the night, to go by the lighting. Sitting up, you rub your eyes halfway clear, and then a slightly crackly voice echoes from the other side of your room.

_"Why couldn't you put the bunny back in the box?"_

God _damn _it. _One day_ and you're already pretty much fed up with this Servant. This feels less like a war and more like babysitting a really, really weird kid. A kid who's apparently also a god. Or not? Your chest aches just thinking about it.

Your chest? That... doesn't make any sense. Shouldn't it be your head? This is a dull pain, an _old_ pain, like a scar from a serious injury a long, long time ago flaring up. It's almost familiar. The pain's gone almost as soon as you've thought about it, but that sense of familiarity... That sticks around.

"Rider, can you _turn that terrible movie down? _I was trying to sleep." The Servant looks at you and shakes his head, looking at you knowingly for... some reason.

"Dude, I promise you that if you watch this movie, your life will never be the same." No. That is not happening. You will _never_ watch 'Con Air' with this idiot, not if your life depends on it.

"How many times do I have to watch that damn thing before you _stop_ _bothering me about it?"_

There's a long, awkward pause as both of you realize exactly what you just said and how little sense it made. That was definitely not the sentence that had been in your head. Why the hell would you ever have watched that movie? It's the _worst_. The stupid running subplot about the stuffed rabbit, the overwrought dramatic reunion at the end... at the... the end of a movie you've never seen before.

Rider looks you in the eye, not saying a word. For the first time since you summoned him, the look on his face doesn't suit his personality at all. He just looks sad. No, not _sad_ exactly, so much as _tired_.

"Man," he says, finally, "I really hoped this dream stuff wouldn't start happening for a while." When you look at him sharply he just shrugs. "Dude, I paid _some_ attention to the, like, Being a Servant 101 thing. Jeez. I'm not stupid." Does that mean... you're dreaming things about him, or his life? It's probably something you'd know if you hadn't needed to rush into all of this, but there's also something... sort of _off_ about his speech for a moment, something almost like guilt. Whatever, there are more important things to figure out.

"Rider," you say, more quietly than you'd actually meant to, "who were you, really?" _He's_ quiet again, which you've already figured out is not normal for him in the least.

"I'm the Heir of Breath. Man, where do I even start? I played a game with my friends, and it's kind of a long story but I guess I -"

He stops dead, mutes the television. Everything is deathly quiet, or it should be, but there's a sort of rushing, tapping sound coming from outside the window. Dragging yourself up to look, you realize it's just rain and feel a little bit like an idiot. It _is_ raining pretty hard, though. Just goes to show that weather forecasts are shite everywhere you look. You're about to lean out and look around, make sure there aren't any clothes left out to dry, when Rider grabs you by the arm and hauls you away.

"What the hell are you doing?" You're groggy and irritable and really have no time for this crap. Rider shuts the window, dulling the ambient sound from outside. There's a tension to him that's completely new, and when he looks at you, he's deadly serious.

"The rain. I didn't feel it coming, and the nearest storm's blowing over another city right now. Kind of fast actually, but the clouds there don't seem to really mind, so I guess that's fine. But this didn't blow in at all, I would have felt it coming. It just started raining really hard out of nowhere."

"So someone's doing this deliberately," you say. "Why, though? What do they gain from it? And what kind of mage wastes time on making it rain? It's just water -"

Only now do you feel it, a sense of something so colossal that you didn't even notice it for a little while, like you're so small and insignificant by comparison that you never realized it was there. You can't believe someone could actually _do_ anything on this scale, if at all.

"It's a bounded field... but why is it so easy to sense, even if I know it's there... and why make it rain?"

"I have no idea, but the Breeze is pretty clear on one thing. It's raining everywhere in this city, and the clouds aren't moving at all. This field thing is here to make sure that rain falls on every part of the whole place it possibly can." Rider sighs. "It's easy to notice, like you said. Too easy. So that means..." And suddenly you get it.

"It's a challenge from another Servant," you finish. "They're out there and this is their way of saying '_Find me if you can'_, isn't it. _Damn it_. Rider, don't you do... I don't know, some kind of windy thing? Can you blow the storm away?"

"Yeah, I do. And I can't do anything about it. I've been trying from the second I realized something was wrong."

"So they're blocking any attempts at interfering with the field somehow. That's not ominous or anything." God, you're tired. Too tired, but whatever, it's been a long day... night... thing. Wandering back over to your bed, you flop down, yawning. Rider turns his head to follow you and sort of winces.

"Uh, sorry about using like half of your mana or prana or whatever it's called," he says.

"_Half of it? _How did you burn through half of it barely doing anything?" Rider inhales through his nose, breathes out through his mouth, not exactly a sigh but something similar.

"Weeeeeeeell, when I said I couldn't do anything to the weather... I was sort of putting as much into that as I actually can without using any of my Phantom whatevers."

Was that... plural? You have so many questions and you really need to make him remember the actual terms for everything in this war, but it'll have to wait until tomorrow, because you're already mostly asleep.

* * *

What is it that you wanted from this war? An answer, and that truly is the extent of your 'desires'. The Grail itself means nothing, and a dim part of you thinks that you should be amused at yourself for being a participant in such a ritual, when to you it is only an excuse to find the man who might have found answers of his own; an enigmatic and chaotic man claiming to fight for his wallet, a ruse entirely obvious to the one person who bothered to pay attention.

Something you did not want from this war was to summon an actual demon as your Servant, as Assassin no less, the least dignified possible outcome. Is this a strange test of faith from God, or merely an ironic joke at the expense of a hollow soul?

"Kireeeeeeeei, your friend is totally l8. Can't we just get out there and start winning already? This war is 8asically over anyway, 8ut come on, it doesn't have to be _8oring_." Assassin leans back against her chosen pew, tapping her foot against the floor in odd patterns, following a rhythm you haven't bothered to memorize. You tilt your head in her direction, watching eight pupils meet your natural two before her mismatched eyes roll.

"The war has hardly begun. I do not follow your line of reasoning, if there is one at all." Hellish fangs spread into a psychotic grin and for a brief moment you're entirely certain she is going to kill you on the spot and feast on your corpse. You return her bloodlust with eyes that lack any interest whatsoever.

"Ugh, I h8 the way you think! You're not supposed to just _stand there_ when some8ody's halfway pretending to want to murder you. Did your lusus drop you on your head when you were a wriggler or something? And the war is over 8ecause it's a _game_, and Vriska Serket _never _loses at games." She flicks an oddly-shaped die into the air with a clawed thumb and catches it like one would a coin. It would irritate you how casually Assassin volunteers her true name, but frankly, you're not convinced it actually matters, as you doubt very much that any other Master or Servant could gain any useful knowledge from it. "So come on, ditch that loser and let's go kill someone already. It's not like the ones fighting are even alive, and the 8itches who summoned them knew what they were getting into anyway."

"We will not move hastily, Assassin, nor will we abandon the _alliance_ carefully established between myself and the 'loser' you have mentioned, who happens to be a friend and my teacher of three years." The devil-girl groans and begins pacing the church, an absurdly long pair of braids trailing along in her wake. Candlelight paints the walls and floor with the shadow of her horns.

It may be peculiar, but for some reason, when you summoned her the first thing you noticed was her worryingly normal attire. Blue jeans and a black t-shirt with a sign of the Zodiac emblazoned in deep cerulean do not an ancient hero make. You didn't feel any better when you asked her for details pertaining to her Noble Phantasms, and she simply cocked her head to the side and grinned wider than anyone or anything you want to see again in your life.

"You know, you've got 8 rows of these 8ench things here. Maybe we won't get along so 8ad after all, huh?" Assassin waits for a response and does not receive one. Then she is standing right in front of you, eye to eye, which is slightly less intimidating when you consider that to actually reach that height, she is standing on one of the pews. "Okay, woooooooow, the 8iggest issue I see here is how fucking 8oring _you _are, _'Master'_", this last delivered with a terrible glint to it that more or less screams 'I dare you to test just how far you can go while keeping me as _your_ servant.'

"There is little to tell. I have been many things and many people. I have performed my duties as a son of God, I have destroyed heretics without mercy as an Executor, and though it pains me to say it, I have indeed become a Magus in pursuit of the Grail."

"Magic _sucks_, right?" Her breath right in your face is cold and carries a carnivore's stench. "I pitch-d8ted this wizard-y douche8ag for a while, 8ut he ended up not even 8eing worth h8ing properly. 8ut then he died and I didn't even have to keep 8locking him every time he tried to talk to me! It's gr8. Things are so much easier when every8ody you're sick of is dead and you're not." Assassin pauses, and then seems, uncharacteristically both for a demon and an entity with the personality you've managed to decode so far, lost in memory for a few seconds. Something changes in her eyes, a hint of all-too-human regret for something showing through. You wonder what it is to feel regret. Perhaps the real demon here is you. "And then sometimes... you're dead, and the people you care a8out aren't, and even when they are, nothing's ever the same. I guess that's just life, though. And death! It's definitely 8oth."

"Is there something you regret, Assassin?" A droplet of black heat forms at the bottom of your heart. "Something you have done wrong?" The look on her face is both infuriated and ever so slightly _afraid_. Without even knowing why, you press on, feeling another drop settle inside of you. "Something you can never take back with your own power? Is _weakness_ your reason for seeking whatever wish it is that you came here for?" The vaguest smile appears on your face, and the motion, involuntary and unexpected, is not false at all. No, it is more real than your very soul. "Could it be that the thing you truly regret is _yourself?"_

The cracks that your body's impact leave in the church's east wall can be repaired without too much effort, but it is not her fist that causes you harm; it is the three parallel marks of clawed fingers whipping first across your face before the more dramatic blow that seem at least slightly more pressing. Clotting swiftly, they will heal without issue, and they will scar. It is entirely possible that you have just become an aesthetically interesting person.

Wiping blood from your eyes with a cloth kept, along with many useful items, beneath your vestments, you sigh and bring yourself to your feet. Assassin whistles, perhaps in appreciation for the endurance of her Master.

A series of carefully orchestrated raps against a door in the church's rear draws your attention. Your partner in subterfuge and magic has arrived at last. Tapping a knuckle twice against the old wood on your side of the portal, you step back as it creaks open. A proud Magus enters, along with... a teenage boy, clad in gray shorts, a lighter gray shirt with a deep green and stylized skull etched into its center, a belt with two handguns attached, and a darker green jacket.

Your teacher looks from your strange Servant to your still-bleeding face and sighs.

"I suppose you've had some issue getting along with your Servant as well, then," he says, frustration and exhaustion lining his features. The boy at his side lets out a hearty laugh that seems out of proportion to both his age and size, clapping a hand jovially on his Master's shoulder, not seeming to notice the Magus's irritation.

_"_A _stand-up_ fucking gent playing the role of the harried loner. _Classic_ Tokiomi," the Servant says, voice dripping with what appears to be liquid Britain as well as far too earnest friendly mirth, and you begin to _truly _understand that this is going to be a long, long war.

**[THE AUTHOR SPEAKS: This chapter was actually 'finished' a while ago, but I got hung up on a pacing issue and ended up wasting a lot of time until I realized, "Hey, wait, there's no law saying a chapter has to be 5,000 words or more, and I have a great note to end a chapter on literally right here." Hopefully I'll keep these things in mind in the future and not just... sit on a perfectly good chapter for well over a week. Sigh.**

**Well, that's Saber, Archer, Rider, Assassin, and Berserker introduced. We'll see more about Archer next chapter, and should be be meeting Lancer and Caster. At some point I will be posting the Servants' sheets, but when I do, large amounts of them will be filled in with "?" until information comes out in the story itself. Anyway, see you next time for Those Who Grasp At Heaven's Gates (3), which should conclude this short prologue-ish first arc.]**


	3. Those Who Grasp At Heaven's Gates (3)

א

_i'll take your word, 'cause after all, you never lied_

_oh not at all, but look at me, oh what a mess_

_i get caught up in the things that matter least_

_oh, let me have release_

_imagine dragons - release_

* * *

You believed that the worms inside of you were caused the most pain you could possibly endure while staying sane; you believed wrong. The pain of the needles that puncture your skin again and again, tiny flashes of scouring violet light shining through, surpasses that imagined limit by far. It's an agony that can't be put into words, and every moment seems likely to leave you dead of sheer mental overload. Your Servant performs the task as if it was something simple and boring, mumbling too quietly to be heard, varying amounts of prana magnifying the bursts of blinding white shock that the worms, ironically enough, serve to power. Once, the pain is vastly larger than at other times; the mumbling that accompanies the moment leaves you to wonder if the most powerful worm... the worm that... if it was _that_ worm destroyed at that moment, and its death cry required more power than the others.

Pain is definitely not your entire world, but right now it sure as hell counts for most of it.

"Quite the infestation, Kariya-san," Berserker says, punctuating the sentence by puncturing your flesh for what honestly feels like the hundredth time, but is probably more like the twentieth. "While I appreciate the grim as a source of self, there must be a limit somewhere, and that ancient thing is proof enough in my own opinion."

"I'm sure I sound like an idiot, but..." You can't help but hesitate. "Is Zouken really dead? I know him too well to think it could be that simple. And for that matter, how the hell did you know what he was? Only the Church and the Clock Tower could have that information." The answers to either question scare you a lot more than the precise, idle purging of your body, and another incredibly important pair linger unspoken: _'Why did a magic user like you qualify as Berserker, and why do you seem to be so sane?'_

"Oh, I doubt that very much," she replies, and you're pretty sure that, even if your heart saw it coming, it's just been broken all over again. Berserker turns her eyes on you - at least, she _must_ be doing that; you can feel them cutting into yours even through the hood that still covers all but her mouth. "Now, now, don't give me any beaten puppy looks. I'll not grant my aid to the faint of heart; what would be the point? Is it dead? Possibly. Would such a creature, so tenacious by nature, have prepared for such a situation? Almost certainly. The important factor is that it has been weakened greatly, and thus ought to leave us alone until I have become a force beyond this world's reckoning, at which point such a small thing's grudge will mean less than nothing. How long will it be, I wonder?"

Her lips curl up in a sadistic smile. It's the smile of someone pleased to know she'll be able to kill the same man twice.

"As for your second query, I am a Seer, and I do hope rather dearly that in your head you've treated the title as a proper noun." Actually, you just did, but you're not going to tell her. She's obviously not done with her monologue, anyway, and she seems to like hearing the sound of her own voice almost as much a certain worm, which you think might be something to worry about. But it's not exactly the same; for all her apparent smug self-confidence, her tone seems closer to something she's inflating on purpose for some reason. That awful sense of _wrongness _hasn't left Berserker, but whatever it means, you have trouble believing she could be anything like _him_.

"As I was saying before you were so rudely lost in thought," she continues, needle piercing another worm; they have to be mostly gone by now, don't they? "I'm what is known as a Seer of Light. One blessed with my class and aspect wouldn't live long enough to see the beyond without such a rudimentary ability to sense the hidden. I refer to the class of Seer, of course, and not Berserker." Her smile widens, twisting into a half-smirk, and if you had anywhere to recoil to, you think you'd be doing it right here and now. "I am also friend to rather... _different_ forces, who have already had much to say on the subject of these 'Blood Worms,' as well as their properties. My friends have much to say about a great many things in your world. Perhaps you shall discover yet more examples."

You shudder and she laughs. The needle plunges into your neck, and you silently thank your Servant's terrifying precision. Said Servant sighs in a certain kind of satisfaction.

"The task is finished, Kariya-san," she says, and the realization that the pain of the worms is gone and all that's left is, well, the pain of being stabbed over and over and having your body scorched from the inside, but... it's different, now.

What do you say to that?

"They're really gone," you manage. Probably not your best use of words, but it's something.

"They are indeed, and a hint of purity is restored to the shadows. Neither I nor my friends shall stand for the existence of creatures daring to mimic in the least the spawn of their thrones. It is an insult of dire magnitude." She stands, smoothing out her robes, and stares down at you. You'd swear you should be able to see under that hood from this angle, but everything above her mouth stays clothed in darkness.

Everything comes crashing in on you at once, and, still struck dumb by everything happening, your thoughts pour out into the air.

"I did all this for Sakura. To get her away from the old man." Berserker remains where she is. "That was the whole reason I joined this war. The reason I let those _things_ into me, fought through all of this violation and suffering and bullshit. But she's _safe _now, it's..." Trailing off, you struggle to find the right words to capture this vortex of emotion, and you fail completely.

"Well, then. You remain enmeshed in something of rather large proportions by the standards of your world." By your world? What the hell does that mean? "The others_ will_ follow this ritual to its completion, and we will slay them all; that is the nature of the _'Holy Grail War'_ and neither of us can change the fact." She turns from you and walks to a nearby window, moving to open it. You sigh. After all you've just endured, she's not sure you can handle the truth?

"I'm not stupid," you say quietly, "don't beat around the bush. Just tell me what you know, please."

She's quiet, but not for long.

"The removal process was as effective as it could have been, but how much of your time amongst the living I have managed to preserve, I simply can't say with any sort of certainty. Months, perhaps, but I doubt any more than that." You don't say it, but somehow you're grateful for her lack of pity. The last thing you need is to be looked down on, patronized. More importantly, you see what she's trying to communicate beyond the _incredibly_ obvious.

"So what the hell am I supposed to do?" You really are feeling lost, set adrift between an impossible dream made reality, and the _cold_ reality that, as much as you knew it already, you can't be saved. "I don't know if I have a reason to fight now. I'm not even sure if I even have something to _wish_ for."

"Well, then, I suppose it's up to you to find your path and decide how to spend what time you have left. I can't help you with that, Kariya-san, but I wish you the best of luck."

"Berserker... thanks." How can you capture everything that has to be said? Why have all your other words to her felt dreamlike, hollow, while these seem to resonate inside of you? Does she feel that difference, too? You hope so. She turns her head back just slightly and nods before opening the window and leaning on its sill, propped up by her elbows, watching the rain.

"Lovely weather we're having tonight, don't you agree?"

You can't see the wicked grin accompanying her question, but you're sure that it's there nonetheless.

* * *

At present, you're brooding in one of a _very_ expensive penthouse suite's chairs, trying to make sense of how to proceed after so much waste and frustration. Ludicrous finances and resources thrown at your catalyst with complete reckless abandon, seeking a hero to conquer and trample the other worms involved in this war, and then you were _robbed,_ some interloper making off with that ancient scrap of cloth, and still you continued forging ahead as always; setbacks are setbacks. As much as they may irritate you (or worse), they will be overcome the same way you've always dealt with your problems: with the overwhelming force of high status and prodigious talent. If your new Servant was to be lacking, you would make up the difference yourself; only one man in this war is a personal threat to you. Tohsaka Tokiomi, the most British a man born in Japan could ever hope to be, and an opponent who might not match you in skill, perhaps, but who could certainly complicate matters. All of these things could be dealt with. You knew you could take whatever this war could throw at you.

And then the summoning was actually performed.

Most of your mental energy is currently allocated to maintaining at least some grip on logic, and you're almost lucky to manage it, because _this_ is unbearable. No meaning to _either_ catalyst, almost no comprehension of your own Servant at all... your Servant was never even _human! _That much at least makes a twisted sort of sense, given your proficiencies (one doesn't simply become a well-respected teacher in Eulyphis without talent in the field), but what caused the failure in the first place? _Was_ it a failure? You'd like to upend a certain test tube and slice the little monster into a few dozen pieces, if you could. Is Lancer powerful? Reasonably so, as far as you can tell, and you share his affinity for wind, which is a potentially useful coincidence (or maybe one of your own dual elements played a part in the summoning; perhaps you'll ruminate on that idea later).

The real problem, however...

There are two real problems, actually. The first is his personality: although Lancer has been mostly polite, the simpering familiar with his absurd outlook on life and reticence to serve is simply the sort of creature you absolutely despise, and he reminds you all too much of one delusional pupil. The second problem is that, somehow, Lancer is in fact a _cripple_, complete with a wheelchair that almost always materializes along with the servant. In addition to the very idea that such a thing is possible at all, dealing with that matter has already taxed your patience, and you have no idea what dangers his pathetic flaw will pose in actual combat.

Even that much is being charitable, really. Even now, after over thirty minutes of intense meditation, you can't imagine how a Servant confined to a wheelchair is going to survive_ any _conflict. Even the Assassin out there somewhere, pathetic as the class is by nature, would probably beat him so thoroughly that even if he had a body of flesh he still wouldn't leave so much as a corpse.

Voices from an adjoining room come muffled through the wall. _What_ is she doing with this useless tool _NOW_? You grit your teeth and go find out.

"1'm st1ll just not sure, exactly how comfortable 1 feel, w1th murder1ng people l1ke th1s, even 1f that's what 1s supposed to happen here, and say1ng 1t over and over in d1fferent words 1sn't really, all that useful for your argument, and honestly 1t's start1ng to get frustrating, do1ng th1s over and over again,"

"Is this imbecilic debate _still_ going on? I have no need of a Servant who refuses to even fight! This entire... _display _is a disgrace to every Servant, and it's a disgrace for_ me_ to have to deal with your idiotic pacifism!" Seething, you continue to glare at the Servant in question, who just looks at you as if it isn't his _duty _to follow your orders!

"Kayneth -" You silence your wife with a gesture indicating she can give up and you'll take over from here. Her venomous smile as she looks back over her shoulder, the door to the hall half-open, sparks a sliver of pain deep in your chest.

"so, now _you're_ go1ng to start, 1 guess," Lancer mumbles, and you resist the urge to slap him in the face only because you know he probably wouldn't even feel it.

"Of course I'm going to _'start,'_ Lancer, and I'm going to _'finish'_ as well. Do you comprehend that if you won't fight, _all three of us _are going to die? If you hate death so much, then act like the Servant you should be and _make sure it never happens!"_ Lancer lowers his head an inch or two and sighs.

"well, 1t is my duty to keep my Master safe, 1 guess, even 1f my Master 1s an asshole, who th1nks he's a lot better at plann1ng, than he actually 1s, so 1f we're attacked, obv1ously 1 can't just let you d1e, the way you would 1f there wasn't somebody there, to f1ght your battles for you, wh1le you l1e around, and your human w1fe prov1des all of the mana, which 1s someth1ng _you_ should be do1ng, as my Master," he says, and it's all you can do to keep from attacking the rebellious little piece of trash.

"Lancer," you say, shaking with rage as you raise your right hand to show him his place, "You _will_ destroy my enemies, or you'll leave me with no choice other than _these_." You're already preparing for the inevitable waste, command seals faintly glowing.

"as your Servant, l1ke 1 sa1d, 1t's my duty to protect you, so let me warn you r1ght now, that 1f you l1ke be1ng somebody who 1s alive and not dead, don't ever use one of those on me, because 1 don't th1nk that a human could surv1ve do1ng that, under these c1rcumstances, or any c1rcumstances,"

The command seals' glow brightens. How _dare_ a familiar speak to you this way? _How dare your Servant try to threaten you like this?_

"_Lancer,_ by the power of this command seal, I -"

Your will falters and the glow begins to fade as you see the look on Lancer's face, and worse, in the infernal orange and black of his eyes. Half of that look is a paradoxically fierce apathy, and the other half... It's not the look of someone who's just fearful, you think, so much as fearful for _you_.

"1f you're plann1ng to keep bully1ng me, 1nto do1ng what you want, please stop sooner than later, because 1'm really t1red of that k1nd of th1ng, and l1ke 1 sa1d before, 1t's really frustrating, espec1ally when 1 don't care what you th1nk," he says, and why, _why _are you suddenly so hesitant to cement your authority and exercise full control? "so, because we're all dead anyway, 1'll f1ght the other Servants because you really want me to, but 1 won't k1ll the1r Masters, even 1f they attack me, so 1f you're go1ng to do any strateg1zing, 1t would be smart to plan around, how 1 won't ever recons1der," and then, abruptly, he fades into spirit form and phases through the wall, headed vaguely north.

Cursing, you rush to get out of the damned Hyatt and catch up before he finds a way to ruin your war.

* * *

It never occurred to you in the least that anything could dampen your spirits now that the final Heaven's Feel had started. You'd taken care of everything that you could; your pupil adjusted surprisingly well to his ruthless training as an allied Master, Rin and Aoi should be safe, and without the dangers of life as a mage with great potential but no space in a mage's society (and no time regardless), Sakura will be able to have the prestige she deserves.

You do your best not to think of her, to disconnect; she is no longer your daughter, and it's the best fate for her and Rin as well, in the end. There have been times, however, late nights in your workshop when exhaustion may sometimes trump reason, when your mind wanders and you remember other late nights, wrestling with logic, doing everything in your power to imagine another way. To your great and secret shame, it once even crossed your mind to attempt to discover a way to split the Tohsaka crest in two. She was let go, in the end, and when she left you were glad to keep hope in her life, and you could not understand why those final moments still felt as though nails were being driven into your chest.

There were no loose ends, there was nothing to distract from your focus on the war, the most important event your life could contain. The summoning should have gone perfectly, and in any case, if by some unseen misunderstanding brought you a Servant apart from the one you sought, you would be ready.

You were not ready.

The odd boy who took form that day struck you first as simply surreal; near-angelic in garb apart from, well, the less said on that subject the better, but the awe of the Servant's mere presence nearly took your breath away. Whoever had answered your call carried the air of something truly divine.

And then he opened his mouth.

"Well, of all the asshole old chums to stumble into, I think you're about the last I'd have expected!"

Startled out of contemplation, you remember exactly where you are and what's happening. It seems as though, unlikely as it may be, both your Archer and Kirei's Assassin knew each other in life. Unfortunately, there appears to be some bad blood between the ridiculous boy and this unsettling creature, and perhaps some bad blood between your former pupil and Assassin, considering the oozing red lines across his face and the notable amount of damage dealt to one church wall.

"I think you've got the wrong Serket. I almost don't even know who you are! Just another scru8 in the 8u88les trying to act like his 8ulge was more than 8 inches long, and that's a8out it." She doesn't look as baffled as you're starting to feel, and something about that makes it even worse.

"I must admit I haven't got a clue what that meant in troll vernacular, so I'll just take it as a compliment! And by Jove you aren't her after all, are you? No offense intended but the Vriska I recall was quite the shifty fuck of a malapert young lady!" Well, there's one true name hurled out the window, but at least it wasn't yours. Assassin rolls her eyes.

"You can call that 8itch whatever you want. She wasn't even supposed to exist, and there I was out there, _still_ doing every8ody's jo8s myself when I was _dead_ and she was lounging around in meteor paradise with her head shoved up her fucking nook! I'm more grown up than she ever was, and I pulled that off without even 8eing alive at the time!"

"So you're from this dreaded pre-Egbert alpha I've heard so much about! You'd have missed the brunt of that poxy shamble's end if you weren't amongst the living, then. From what gossip I overheard it was quite the shithouse of a reality!"

You genuinely don't know if you should learn the details of their odd little half-reunion. Something about it reeks of the kaleidoscope, and there isn't an accomplished magus alive who hasn't learned enough about that particular Magic through grim tales of the mad Wizard Marshall to be wary of anything close to related. Regardless, it's about time to shed some light on whether these Servants have any hope of working together; perhaps things will work out after all.

"Archer," you interject, "catching up with an old acquaintance is certainly pleasant, but the more pressing issue at the moment is whether or not Assassin and yourself won't end up murdering each other somehow. That would truly be a shame."

It would be, you suppose, though mostly the last phrase was meant as a bit of incentive. Maybe you're being slightly harsh about him. He hasn't necessarily caused any real problems, after all, and if nothing else he's even more visibly enthusiastic about this war than you are. The merely average parameters trouble you, especially that luck, which you suspect may actually be ranked as low as the system can display if not lower, but then, you suppose Archers are generally thought of as one of the more versatile classes, and whatever Noble Phantasms he possesses will surely be useful. You haven't yet asked the specifics; you'd like to play the slightly longer game to cement your partnership before being that intrusive towards an immensely deadly familiar.

"I've got no objections to a ceasefire of sorts! Frankly it's bloody fucking refreshing to meet a Vr - excuse me - an Assassin with a bit of maturity, and I've seen one of you in action regardless. I sure wouldn't like to have you unleash _that_ on me!" He extends an arm, obviously expecting a handshake.

Assassin is still and silent for a few seconds before she attacks.

Clawed hands lash out with vicious strokes clearly meant to tear out your Servant's throat, but before they have a chance to land, there's a heavy, vibrating thud as Archer leaves a small crater in the floor to become, to your eyes, almost but not quite literally an escaping streak of color punctuating itself with rapid, echoing gunfire. Assassin's arms whip through the air, and with a short series of loud clinks, Archer's shots fall to the floor, dented by their impacts. She grins, revealing four oddly shaped blue dice held between the clawed fingers of each hand. As Archer slows to a stop, you realize that despite his very average looking pistols and the one second time span of the clash, there are at least fifty casings lying jumbled around Assassin's feet. The creature and the gunman stand as the former lets her dice roll smoothly into her palms, ready to be thrown for whatever purpose. You're not sure if you're lucky to be standing in a position to observe them both, or if you're in critical danger of being killed, probably accidentally. If you're going to be honest with yourself, your main concern is the potential dissolution of your alliance with Kirei.

"It's kind of incredi8le, you know. Your luck is so 8ad there's literally nothing there for me to steal!" Archer blinks at this and then laughs in a strange, bitterly boisterous tone.

"Wouldn't be much of an adventure if the gosh-fucked world just let me stroll on through without so much as a wink of good old bloody mayhem! Where's the fun if a few sudden haymakers from god knows what dimension don't put a twist or ten in your way?"

Your Servant is a thrill-seeking idiot, apparently, though those pistols, as much as you despise such crass inventions, are clearly dangerous enough to need to be blocked. Kirei's Servant isn't even human, is far too aggressive to act as a proper Assassin, and truthfully, the ambiguity of those dice is disconcerting.

"Adventure, huh? Raiding ancient tom8s for haunted idols, following treasure maps wherever they lead, is that what you're all a8out?"

"That's a _ripping_ good question and of course it's what I'm all about! Sounds to me like maybe we've got more in common than I thought." At this, Assassin's grin widens to reveal even more teeth than before. At some point, you'll have to discover just what she actually is, but at the moment, it seems wiser to see what happens next. If nothing else, Archer is being more than a bit amusing, and even you could use a bit of idiotic levity once in a while; you're well aware it's simply human nature to hold onto happiness as long as possible before it moves on.

"That was an interesting trick you pulled with those projectile dispensers. The first time was a real surprise!" You have absolutely no idea what she could be referring to, though to be fair to yourself, you are a very different sort of combatant. The fact that they're both Heroic Spirits is probably relevant, as well. Looking back to Archer, though he seems... certainly less confused than you feel, but confused nonetheless. Assassin doesn't appear to notice.

And then the gray-skinned Servant lets her dice dissolve back into oddly glittering prana. Archer twirls his guns before slipping them back into the makeshift holsters at his waist.

"Wouldn't be such an awful fate to take up the cause with a fellow man-at-arms, now would it? Woman-at-arms, rather, if you can be so kind as to pardon my fucking Swedish. The gambler and the pistoleer, fighting a shadow war in the name of their dreams! Sounds like a ripsnorter of an adventure to me."

"May8e I could stand a little time around one more dork in my death," Assassin says. "I guess I have a loooooooot of experience tolerating human 8ullshit." Archer makes his way to Assassin, and, once more, extends a hand.

"Comrades it is, then?" His expression makes it clear how hopeful he is for that outcome.

"I do love 8reaking the rules," she says, and Archer beams as your former pupil raises a stained cloth to wipe the last of the blood out of his eyes.

* * *

Heavy. It's heavy and you're tired, so tired... your arms are burning from the strain, but... should you care? The river gushes by to your left, but it's so hard to hear it, and why would that matter? There's no more writhing. You think lots of things used to matter, maybe. The first few days you had to kick the cargo every so often to keep it manageable. They don't complain, now, if you take them from nearby. No one nearby has anything to complain about. It's hard to have complaints when you're so _tired._

Rain is pounding from the skies, leaving you and the cargo soaked, but that's okay. Everything is okay when nothing matters. You think you should hate it here, find the lack of color boring. Maybe you were some sort of artist, once, and you've only just remembered. But it's okay. You're so tired, and isn't it peaceful, now? Isn't it quiet, free?

The new world starts here, in this city. It doesn't matter, but the world doesn't know that nothing matters, so if the whole world was tired and didn't care, then things wouldn't be the same as they were before the world became tired and stopped caring. You guess that's true, but it doesn't really mean anything. That's okay, though. Everything is okay, because none of it matters.

No more rain, but it's raining. You must be somewhere else. It's dark, but that's fine. Pillars hold the gloom's hiding place. When it hadn't occurred to you that nothing mattered, you might have liked this place. Weren't you an artist? Or were you? If you were an artist, you think you would've liked it here, but that's okay.

Torches deeper in the darkness cast their gray light on the gray walls, the gray floor, but it doesn't matter. When you're close enough, the torches reveal your gray skin, gray clothes, the gray sack dragging behind you. The contents spill out as you fall to the floor, and the gray flames illuminate their gray little bodies and gray little clothes. You clip your head on the hard concrete, but only a little bit, and it doesn't matter anyway. It's almost nice in here. When your head rolls a bit to the right, you remember there are markings on the back of your right hand. They glow, just a little bit. Did you get a tattoo? It doesn't really matter. The gray markings and their gray glow stay mostly centered in your field of vision.

"gettin useless noww huh" "wwell mostly useless" "been thinkin an wwonderin on that"

"evver think wwhat happens wwhen a servant eats his masters soul" "ivve been thinkin"

"thinkin its wworth a shot" "aint sure to risk it but" "guess a rulers wwork aint evver done"

You slowly roll your head in the other direction. Violet, shades of orange, glints of gold from ring-bearing fingers, from necklaces, from sclera. Didn't he say he was a prince, once? It doesn't matter, though. It's not important enough to speak. Is anything, really? The colors are closer now, to you, the floor.

It must hurt a lot when clawed hands punch through your ribcage, but that's okay. In all the gray and the gray and the gray and the gray, a gush of bright red pulses and spreads across your gray skin and soaks your gray clothes.

Didn't even know you could be this tired, but that's okay.

Yeah, that's just fine.

**[Next time on Fate/Zero Release: _Storm's Call To Silver Shores_]**

**[THE AUTHOR SPEAKS: So, that happened. Also, at some point I did some editing to fix a few things, and make the parts of the Nasuverse that I'm _not_ breaking with my own knowledge jive with canon. Chapter 1 is unsurprisingly where the most changes are. Anyway, see y'all next time!]**


	4. Storm's Call To Silver Shores (1)

א

_don't give in to wild currents, don't believe in callous rituals_

_i'll always want to carry it all, love, find a way to carry it all for you_

_circa survive - i'll find a way_

* * *

You were right, for whatever reason. Saber sits at nearly the highest point of the castle roof, staring out into the blank white and the trees through those same shades, mouth a thin line, a human-shaped bloodstain in stark contrast against the bright white of a parapet's accumulated snow.

"You know, it's funny, I ain't remember saying I wanted any fuckin' company."

"We're leaving tomorrow. You'll be protecting Iri."

A pause.

"That better not mean what I think it means."

"The two of you arrive on a separate flight. She'll be posing as the Einzbern Master -"

"Called it, you fucker." His head tilts a bit in your direction. "An asshole like you might as well just give her the command seals and fuck off anywhere but here. I think the lady deserves it more than some scumbag freelancer I bet never protected another person in his life." You keep yourself completely expressionless, you're sure of that. Nothing that you're thinking and feeling is visible, despite the fact that he's either a horrifically talented guesser or he's somehow familiar with your life history, which shouldn't even be possible yet.

But the corner of his mouth still quirks into an infuriating smirk.

This is when negotiations end, or more accurately, when you can say without any doubt that there was never any chance of getting through to him in the first place. There's one thing left to say before you leave and ideally never have to talk to this 'Heroic Spirit' again.

Saber doesn't interrupt you this time. He waits, motionless, until you've finished your whole hopeless piece. The odds are terrible. What chance is there that this child could have what you need? Regardless, you have to try, and the answer...

Something inside of you slips away, something cruel and relentless, a certain specific terror pursuing you since the moment that Saber was summoned.

"Sure._ That's_ the reason. It ain't like you're just cementin' your advantages." The Servant stands, snow falling from his strange outfit as if he were brushing it clear himself. "And I'm the Queen of England just gettin' back from trackin' a leprechaun through 'nam. You're lucky other people's lives actually matter to _me_, but I'm gonna make somethin' _real_ clear right now." Saber takes a few short strides forward, very deliberately, until you're much too close for comfort. He slides his sunglasses down the bridge of his nose, contempt winding through even the smallest of his motions.

Stunned, you realize you've just been beaten by your own Servant. The bastard got you to blink first.

"I'm stuck in this Servant bullshit, so I'll play along. But don't think that even one single thing I _ever_ do is gonna be 'cause I give a fuck about _you_." He takes a step or two back, and then, in a flash of crimson prana, his blade catches glints of winter light as it whips almost invisibly along the roof between you. A neat square of stone and wood groans and falls to the room below with a deafening crash, sending tremors through the roof and everything nearby. Saber's tiny, brutal smirk makes another appearance. "Whoops, forgot about doors for a second there. Go throw some blood money at it if you give a shit."

He hops into the hole, and you sit hard against the roof yourself, inhaling slowly before a long sigh. A minute passes, then two.

Watching the bright glow that flickers between red and orange as it splays through unseen windows below, casting itself eerily across the snow, you just barely manage to stay upright as every spare bit of mana in your body drains away.

* * *

"Have you ever flown before, Saber?"

The flight to Japan seemed like something out of a dream; a strange horizon dividing the sky from itself, the sea of clouds below more than enough to take your breath away. Even being ignored by this odd teenager now dressed in worn jeans and a t-shirt wasn't enough to damage the sheer wonder of the experience. Now, though, you just can't help but try to talk to him again; you really can't picture any of this going well at all if he maintains the cloak of staunch silence he's worn around himself, strange and somehow sad instead of arrogant, you've come to believe. In the gloom and rain of Fuyuki, maybe everything just looks more melancholy than it should. It doesn't help at all that he's declined any sort of protection from the weather and still refuses to take on his spirit form, his clothing drenched in the downpour, even though he doesn't seem bothered. Hands in his pockets, he stares up at the dim sky, water gleaming as it runs down his sunglasses, and your hopes of getting through to Saber begin to sink.

It surprises you a bit when he finally answers, and you wonder how long you _actually_ waited for a reply, if your own anxiety might be a factor in making these pauses feel so long. For whatever reason, whenever Saber is nearby, you feel as though your perception of time slips out of sync with the rest of the world.

"Man, I spent damn near my whole life flyin'. When I was a kid I got bit by this radioactive crow that was also, like, a cursed bird wizard, at exactly the same second my ceilin' fan grew a bunch of creepy faces and sent me this crazy-ass message from God, I am rockin' all _kinds_ of crazy superhero bullshit, got a LOHAC magical realism medal full of talkin' lava from the secret president, who ended up actually bein' a were-axolotl, turns out I was the only one who figured it out on my own, hell, I thought it was obvious."

Walking off towards the car already waiting for you both, you manage to make it almost to the rear door before you lose control and start to giggle, accidentally wetting your hair when you double over and your umbrella swings to one side. After what feels like forever, you can manage to breathe again, and when you look more clearly at Saber, you'd _almost_ swear that the corner of his mouth that's quirked up into a barely visible smile is actually genuine.

You're not so sure that the weather is having any negative effect on his mood or yours after all. Why is it that most of the television and film that you've seen makes use of rain to evoke a somber tone? Even through the gloom that's technically present, the water coating everything around you isn't what you'd expected at all; it's as though your surroundings are somehow made sharper, more vivid, and even the drops themselves seem sometimes to catch what light remains, glittering faintly. You're probably just feeling poetic due to the surreal freedom of leaving the castle behind, and you're definitely exaggerating even in your own thoughts, but in this moment, the heavy shower looks like an endless hail of tiny, falling stars.

"Saber, I was being serious," you say, having a lot of difficulty actually_ sounding_ serious.

"Who says I wasn't bein' dead serious? You gotta know I ain't the type to make jokes."

"I say you weren't, because almost everything you say is a joke," you reply, holding in another building fit of laughter.

He's quiet again, just long enough for you to worry that you've said something out of line. It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

"Yeah," he says. "Ain't ever on a plane, though. Had some ideas a long time ago, but... best laid plans, y'know?" You nod, although you aren't sure that you know from your own experience. Those stories belong to someone else, someone the Servant probably doesn't want to hear about right now. "Seen a lot of shit from up high, crazy awesome shit and crazy fucked up shit y'all don't even wanna know about. Guess your Goblet of Murder decided to clip my goddamned wings, though, so that blows."

He pauses.

"Never did get to see my Earth like that, in the end. Wasn't much left to see by then anyway, I guess," and before you really have a chance to respond, or even a chance to try to figure out what he means, he opens the door and motions for you to get in.

"I didn't really take you for the chivalrous sort of person, Saber." He snorts, and you wonder if his eyes are rolling behind the still-gleaming black shield of his ever-present glasses.

"Yeah, well. Wasn't exactly the best at bein' a Knight, but what the hell, figure I might as well try to keep actin' the part." Once you're in your seat, he shuts the door again and meanders around to his own side and seat, obviously unconcerned about his clothes soaking the inside of the car, while you try to decide if you should feel badly or not for bringing up what must be uncomfortable memories, and as the driver begins to pull away, you find yourself asking something rather silly mostly by accident.

"_Did_ you really have wings, before all of this?" Saber tilts his head in your direction.

"Depends on which me you're talkin' about," he says, and, biting the inside of your lip at the sudden, startlingly open bitterness in those words, you decide that maybe you should follow his earlier example and try staying quiet for a while yourself.

* * *

"... on _my_ head instead, and he still has that stern fatherly look on his face, and I am standing there soaked in water and he just hands me a cupcake and goes back downstairs!"

That's the sound of _people_ laughing. Plural. You're not much of an early riser, and what else can you really do except follow along, at least for now? It's kind of embarrassing that this is anything remembling a surprise. Of course he stuck his nose into things, what else was he going to bloody do? He's _Rider_.

You actually feel uncomfortably like you understand him better than you should this early on. When you woke up you'd been having a bizarre dream about some kind of failed launch, except it didn't have much to do with, well, _launching_, and for thirty seconds or so, part of you was pretty much convinced the year was _two thousand six_. Is that something to do with the Grail? Nothing you read said anything about it, but even if you sort of did tear as many libraries apart as possible, it'd have to make sense for there to be stuff that isn't documented; you never could find an actual account of any of the previous three wars, just some vague hints. Really, it was lucky you found enough to get involved at all.

But right now you definitely smell bacon and eggs and frankly, in this moment, that's the most important thing possible. Rain is still pounding outside the house, but that can all wait until you feel less like a depressed, starving corpse, so you do your best to stumble down the stairs. God, you're exhausted.

"Waver, dear, why didn't you tell us you had a friend coming to visit?" Oh, _man_, are you going to have to re-hypnotize these two _again? _It's starting to make you feel like sort of an arsehole. You're about to fumble into some stopgap measure reply, but Rider beats you.

"Ah, hehe, sorry about that," he says, looking sheepish and scratching his head. "The truth is I didn't really give him much warning. I do a lot of traveling around the world and it's kind of tough to keep track of things? To be honest I am also pretty bad at reading Japanese, even if I can speak it okay, and I just kinda gave up on finding much out until I wandered into the suburbs in the middle of the night and somebody actually helped me find him." He looks concerned after a few seconds and hastily continues. "I mean, I have enough cash for a hotel room, it's just a little bit tough... if you guys want, I can definitely still do that."

Both Mackenzies look basically scandalized at the thought.

"No, of course not," Martha says. "Feel free to stay here. Waver doesn't really have many friends here, so it's a wonderful surprise to have a visitor from abroad." Point to Rider. You had no idea the kid could be so smooth; it's like he knows how to leverage his natural awkwardness and make it work for him.

"You seem a bit young for a world traveler," Glenn follows, and he has no idea how right and wrong he is. Wait, what? That doesn't mean anything, really. _You_ still have no idea who Rider is. Even if he's told you his name, he hasn't told you anything about his old life. "Is your father all right with that?"

The Servant's response looks so natural you're starting to be impressed and kind of creeped out. Talk about not missing a beat. A little stab of pain in your chest goes unnoticed by anyone else. You must have hurt a muscle or something, between last night and this morning. Rider's head lowers a bit, definitely enough for anyone to notice, but not overdoing it either.

"Oh, um." Yep, he's going for it. "My dad... kind of died a few years back. So I don't really have all that many stories to tell." Damn. He really _is_ a good actor. "And I never knew my mom at all, although I'm fine with that." His gaze fades back to normal and he smiles. "Dad was kind of a super great single parent, even if I didn't really get it at the time."

"Oh, dear, I'm sorry. We didn't mean to bring up bad memories."

black sword a scarred rooftop blood pooling more like an ocean don't even know how to react but _he's_ still here and you can think about it lateoh okay, whoa, that was weird. You really hope the Mackenzies didn't notice that dizzy spell, but Glenn picks up on it. The guy is a little too sharp for comfort. When he glances your way, you give him a small sort of wave to hopefully show you're fine, and he either buys it or he's going to bring it up later. At some point you'll have to get an answer ready just in case, and also maybe try to use less mana for a while. You think you might have actually almost blacked out, there; you definitely lost a few seconds.

"... it's really fine, I had friends to help get me through it, and then I kinda took some money and dropped off the face of the Earth. Kinda wanted to just get away, you know? And I'd never even left Washington, so seeing the world sounded pretty cool."

"That's a hard life," Glenn says, and Rider shrugs. "Do you have any plans for the future? You're a bright young man, and there's only so much to learn from wandering." You finally flop into your chair.

"I think he still wants to be a pianist," you say without thinking about it at all. "Or at least, you used to, right?" Rider scratches his head again and looks vaguely embarrassed, but his eyes pierce right through you in a momentary flicker.

"Well, Dad had me taking lessons when I was younger, and I was always kind of mad about it, but I think that was just me being weird, because when he wasn't home I did have a lot of fun messing around. I think I was basically being a dumb kid and trying to act like I didn't want to learn, just because it was his idea. Waver's right, though! It would be way cool to do that for a living, or maybe being a comedian? Oh, man, maybe I could do both at once."

... He really did want to, once, didn't he? Before... before whatever happened. You must be remembering it from your dreams. They weren't as vivid the second time, but some of the details apparently got stuck in your subconscious.

Martha laughs in that way that makes you feel a little bit guilty. It's not fair for your own magecraft to backfire like this. It's not even an actual side effect! Is that just another one of your failings as a magus? Too much compassion for your own good?

"I think you should try it, if you get the chance," you say. "If that's the kind of stuff you're into, then going after it makes sense to me." The Mackenzies seem to agree. "Your life _is_ a little bit rough, even if it's, I don't know... colourful? I get worried you're going to die in a desert somewhere and I'll never even know about it."

Acting comes easier when there's someone else to riff off of, but... What life _did_ he actually have? Your dreams were muddled, but you're sure it wasn't a good one, or at least... it turned into something messed up eventually, and he obviously died young. Unless he's hiding some really horrible secrets, he probably deserved a lot better than he got. It's sad to think he never got to live out any of those dreams. At least he must have died a hero, however it happened.

And at least he had friends. You can't put names or faces to them, but you know they were there in some way that wasn't normal. He's obviously been summoned from the future or something like it, so maybe there was some improvement in long distance communication?

It makes you feel strange, how quickly and easily that idea came to you.

"You need to wake up a bit and eat, young man," Martha says, and you realize she's talking to you. Yeah, that's probably true. For someone who only thinks she knows you, at least you can tell she's a good person. Yeah, it's all just an illusion, but... it's kind of nice, feeling like you have a family.

You hadn't really noticed you missed that feeling until just now.

* * *

"Are you sure it's really going to be enough?"

"Oh yes, the source is more than sufficient," Berserker says. "As things currently stand, you need only serve as my anchor, and I will have more than enough mana to carry out whatever arcane duties this venture will entail. You'll carry your own weight, of course."

"Of course I will. I've made it this far, haven't I? And besides, she's still alive, isn't she? You're a Seer of some kind, so you'd know, wouldn't you?" She shrugs, a small motion, but still more human than most of her behavior's indicated so far. There's only so much you can feel through your link, but it's more than it was throughout that long, agonizing night, and beneath her calm there's a seething fury, ice cold and terrifying. _Your_ anger is an inferno, burning you up from inside. Berserker turns to look at you. You're sure of a lot more things about her than you were, and she probably knows it.

"Not necessarily," she says, "But I do think it most likely, yes. At the very least, I believe I know the most auspicious first step towards finding the answer, and with it, our goal and our enemy."

"Don't you mean _my_ enemy? It's not like this concerns you. It isn't even related to the war."

"To the contrary. Have I not found a kindred spirit and a cause well worth pursuing? Were you to dislike this course of action, you would require the usage of a command seal to forbid it." You're not used to smiling again, not really, and maybe you won't live long enough to have the chance. This is a disaster beyond anything you wanted to believe possible after your Servant's summoning, and you're still a blazing mass of emotion, but you're relieved whenever her cold demeanor cracks and you can see evidence of a real person. A _good _person, you suspect.

"Berserker," you ask, hesitant, still unsure if you might provoke something unexpected. "Nothing about you fits your class at all. I'm amazed you're not this war's Caster. I have to ask why, if you have the answer yourself." You're expecting... well, you have no idea what you're expecting, but her response is only similar to one of your considered possibilities. She actually _grins_, and for half a second it scares the hell out of you, before you realize the expression is another slip. You can't say why she acts so much colder and businesslike most of the time, but more and more, you think you're using exactly the right word: _"acts."_

"You are somewhat correct; were the slot open, I suspect I would indeed have been a Caster. However, there is more to most than meets the eye, as you well know." Her grin fades into the more typical half-smirk. "You see, rage and madness come in many forms. It is true that retaining my intellectual prowess appears unusual, and perhaps it is; I imagine that you have come to suspect something is quite wrong with this war's functionality. Perhaps this is why such an odd circumstance befalls me. However..." She trails off, as if expecting _you_ to continue for some reason.

You're not sure where the inspiration comes from, and you're surprised you remember it so well; you haven't read or heard the poem in so many years. It's still the best response you can think to give.

_"Some say the world will end in fire_

_Some say in ice._

_From what I've tasted of desire_

_I hold with those who favor fire._

_But if it had to perish twice,_

_I think I know enough of hate_

_To say that for destruction ice_

_Is also great_

_And would suffice."_

Robert Frost, _'Fire and Ice.'_ It's an overly simply poem to your mind, and you aren't sure that you even liked it all that much whenever it was you read it, but...

"I believe you have answered much of your own question, Kariya-san," Berserker says. "Worry not. When battle comes to greet us, much will be made clear."

"Fair enough. What _is_ this 'auspicious first step' you were talking about? Because I'm more than ready to take it, and I don't give a _damn _what it is. You know I'd burn the whole world to ashes if that was the only way."

"I do indeed. The sentiment is quite familiar to me, in my own way." Standing as eerily still as ever, you realize that one part of her is nothing like the rest, not right now. Berserker's right hand is curled into a fist, and you're all too familiar with the kind of anger it takes to get a fist to shake that way. "In a moment I shall elucidate, and we may begin."

Her eyes are practically burning holes through the hood still hanging over all but her mouth, and you know now that when you feel like she's meeting your own eye, you're not wrong.

"Good," you all but spit, that empty basement haunting your mind, fueling the flames. "And as soon as this is done..."

"You mean to oppose him, then? I certainly cannot condemn your motivation." Oh, you'll oppose him. Zouken was the obvious monster, but the _other_ monster is still alive and well. "Once we've tracked down and punished whoever took Sakura, Tohsaka Tokiomi _dies_."

"Well then," Berserker says, "if we are quite done speaking, _let's make shit take place."_


	5. Storm's Call To Silver Shores (2)

א

_you better get started on this funeral pyre_

_and one day i will truly set myself on fire_

_so you can see how dim my light is_

_andrew jackson jihad - all the dead kids_

* * *

He maneuvers through the equipment. You were thorough, and everything he should need is present. Kiritsugu has little to say and you even less. This is the way of things. Even if something has changed, and you believe it has, this is the way of things.

You watch the ritual of the Contender, the eject and reload. There are not many beautiful things in this world, but the sound of ammunition clicking into place is one of them. He judges himself here, for his performance. It seems to you that his speed and flexibility have not deteriorated as badly as he thinks or as time would imply, but this man has no kind words for himself. Emiya Kiritsugu has never had any such thing.

Dedicated so entirely to his dream. What is it to live for something that isn't another? After all of this time, you have no answer. Without a basis for comparison in your memory, your motives remain the same as always. Your only wish is to serve as the best tool you can be. And so, you perform this duty.

"Your aim's unsteady," you say. He will understand. The truth presents itself without difficulty. Something has changed. Only a few days ago, Kiritsugu had perhaps succeeded in purifying himself of his humanity, but something has changed. "The Servant?"

The death in his eyes is not as complete as he wished it to be. He has not yet returned to the mentor you knew. The man who is your world. An emptiness you could not fill, no matter how many times you tried, once bottomless, holds at least a drop of the man inside, the man who you never had a chance to know.

"Probably." Kiritsugu closes his eyes. He attempts to center himself, as you've seen in the past. Something goes wrong. A twitch. Peace eludes him. "The pact is too strong, stronger than it should be." Logical. Possibly unfortunate, and possibly...

"He's too similar to you. Could that be the cause?"

Confusion. Perhaps meaningless; you might be wrong. You doubt that. Can he not see himself as you do? Does he struggle with himself, now, chained as he is to that strange familiar? He doesn't bother to speak, dismissing a truth that should be self-evident.

"The reason doesn't matter, only the solution. I shouldn't have woken up... _there."_ Kiritsugu allows nothing to be shown, but he's admitting to something you feared to address. You should nod. It's not your place, but you should agree. Silence is your chosen answer. "Maiya. I don't remember going to Iri's room. Not at all." This you did not know. A factor to be feared, for many reasons. To be filed carefully with all recognized quantities in the situation.

"This war won't drag on," you say, and guide your arms around him. "You won't lose yourself." You pull him, smoothly, into a kiss. He must further numb himself, he knows, affections chipped away each time that you engage, his attachment to his red-eyed lover breaking and waiting for its burial. This is his reason, and nothing else. His duty without pleasure. A penance. Betrayal for its own sake against the one he loves. The one whose life will soon end through the results of his actions, his decision. He will continue this way, a stripped machine, your empty flesh cleansing him of humanity.

If you can be useful in this way, you think, then you will be useful. A tool feeling nothing in these moments but a storm of heat that cannot be allowed to escape. A familiar pain, an unfamiliar pain. If Emiya Kiritsugu's weakness lies in Irisviel von Einzbern and their daughter, then your weakness lies in Emiya Kiritsugu. Each time (shrugging off coats) his heart bleeds (the rasp of fabric on skin) further and further (unnecessary things unclasped and discarded) and yours seems to grow (hands run up below your breasts), as though offering yourself (sound there is no need to mask), piece by piece, to (it is not the same?) to the ritual of taking from him what he cannot risk (what is different?) and stoking the cold flame (should be simple, should be to the point) that will one day surely (inhale as fingertips trace the insides of your thighs) be the death of (why do you kiss him again?) the weapon known as (how long did you dream?) 'Hisau Maiya,' someone (dream of a sliver of something, anything?) with no true self (bursts of sound and sensation, caught, timeless), with no purpose (drained, collapse, why does he not move on?) but to die in the service (where is the machine that you recall?) of your cause, of the wish of (who is this man, pulled from what place?) the Magus Killer, mentor, savior (is what you feel becoming reality?), _universe._

You should get up. He will dress and you will dress as though nothing has happened. It's not the first time or the twentieth. Are you so selfish as to treasure these empty times? Why is it harder here, now, to let go? When you pull your face from his shoulder (never so close before), a hand, hesitant, trails slowly across your back (why? tired, lost, snared in smooth exaltation), and you sigh without intention (master, unforsaken, beloved) and, begin to pull back (unrequited, your black hole, or is he?).

The arm that clutches you closer is warm, and the eyes you finally meet are not those you're used to, not quite. There is something else there, just as there was so much more to this than should have been.

Perhaps it truly is possible for a killer to come to feel something, anything, for his knife, his firearm. Why else? Does he even have the answer himself? Unlikely. To sever and bind, he said once, long ago. The words of a woman dead before your acquisition. Irreversible change. She really was as wise as he spoke of her. The words remain with Kiritsugu and, through him, they remain with you. To sever and to bind...

_'If you cut a string and then tie it, the thickness will be different where you tied it, right?'_

What was cut, in truth, you have no idea, but there's a change in what remains. Was this inevitable? Did you serve with foolish hopes that you knew could lead only to nothing, only to find yourself rewarded in some way? He looks into your eyes and you see that he's already 'dying,' fraying at the edges.

Below the weave, behind the eyes, the self, glimpses can be seen through a tattered curtain. The Magus Killer is coming to a slow end, one piece at a time, and may never return. You may blame Saber, come to hate him. Your master may slip, may be felled in a moment of corrupted weakness. And yet, you may silently thank the Servant, beneath _yourself_, from the center of the blue flame turning your insides to blue light. The slowly dissolving Magus Killer, you will try to set aside; pragmatism is sanity. You knew this before 'Hisau Maiya' was 'born,' and so this intrinsic philosophy guides the boundaries of your reality.

But right now, all you can manage is to know that things were different, this time. The man you are pressed against on this bed where a certain Mystic Code's method of delivery still rests is not who you once served. He is the same person, and he is utterly different.

For the first time, you think, you have stood near, spoken to, and connected through flesh with the true owner of the name Emiya Kiritsugu. You should leave. Stake out the boundaries of the hotel a fourth time, look over your gear once more. But there's time for that in a few minutes.

In the brief absence of any pressing objectives, you stay exactly where you are.

* * *

"So I'm thinking I've got a plan." Assassin. After hours of incessant babbling, the creature, who has yet to volunteer her abilities or even what she actually is, has finally said something perhaps worth listening to. You spent your time mostly ignoring her, healing the wounds on your face through meditation; a slow process, but effective on a basic level. A quick assessment via touch makes it clear that the scars will remain, three parallel lines that could easily have left you blind. Something about the way that they feel when you run your fingers over them, more prominent than you'd expected... Can this be thought of as 'pleasure' on a minor scale? Surely not, yet there is a strange allure here, a sense that there is something fundamentally correct about their presence, that while your answer must lie far, far ahead of you, this incident could be the first real step towards finding it.

"There were words coming out of my mouth a few seconds ago," she says, "so may8e you could pay just a _little 8it _of attention?" Ah, yes. A 'plan' of sorts. It is true that you have had no luck in deciding on a course of action. Much hung on Tokiomi's trust in the power of his relic, but it appears that this war does not follow all of its normal rules. You wonder how many it does, which they are, and whether any have changed in some way.

"I am aware, Assassin. Replying seemed a waste of time, as you will obviously continue speaking regardless." From the occasional raucous laughter one room over, you suspect your ally is suffering his own Servant's different sort of enthusiasm as well.

"My plan is very simple. I call it Operation 8oredom Annihil8ion, and the o8jective is to _get me out of this 8oring fucking human-Sufferer cult hideout!"_

This, you think, could be where problems begin to surface. What does Assassin believe she can gain by simply leaving the church? She ought to already possess enough knowledge of the modern world through her summoning itself, so what point is there to risking her location, wandering? Just from her behavior and personality, you cannot help but think it possible that your Servant may not have her class's signature Presence Concealment skill at all.

Actually, that is an extremely important piece of knowledge. How well _can _she perform the basic duties aligned with her particular vessel?

"First, Assassin, I must insist that you reveal about yourself at least one thing." She merely watches, eyes narrowing by the moment. "Due to your class, you should have its primary skill." Tension. The demon's eyes do not glow, but here in the dust and gloom, it would be easy to believe otherwise. "What rank is this skill, if you have been granted it at all?"

"... _Fine_," she spits – actually spits, in fact, staining the ground with a small splotch of bluish saliva to punctuate the word, "8ut only 8ecause I got a good hit on you earlier. After this we're even." Ominous, but not terribly surprising. She should not be 'even' with you in any sense; it is in fact her duty to be _beneath_ you, as strange as you still find the overarching concept.

"Very well. Then state your answer." Her glare is impressive... but you've seen worse, in lines of work you no longer pursue. Assassin's eyes may be those of a devil, but in this moment they are dulled by something. Embarrassment? That would not bode well for her answer or for your ability to make use of her.

"I've got the stupid Presence Concealment thing." A petulant kick at the side of one pew, cracking old wood. "It's D-rank. It's totally shitty. There. Happy now, heretic?"

It could have been worse. This is how you decide to process her information. At least she _does_ have it, even if at a low rank that you find worrisome. And what did she mean by calling you a heretic? You think that you should be angered, but instead you're merely curious. More important now is whether her other abilities can make up for the deficiency.

"I am satisfied to have the information," you say, and for a very long second, she seems to be considering leaving you with yet more scars and possibly more damaged property. "What matters, then, is how you may fare in other areas. With little skill in stealth and low parameters in every basic category but one..." The corner of your lip twists upward, and you're sure now that she would attack were she not aware of the consequences of such an act, that she should by nature be unable to attempt to inflict anything greater than minor wounds upon her own Master. "In such a state, what are you capable of to make up for this intrinsic weakness?"

Eyes burning with an odd fury: wounded pride, wicked self-confidence, and... something else, distinct and peculiar, that you find yourself unable to identify, she grins wide, mouth overflowing with rending fangs.

"What I'm _capa8le_ of?" Abruptly, her hands fill with the glittering blue dice she used to defend herself from Tokiomi's eager minion. The Servant flicks one into the air, then swipes it back in a motion that you suspect the average person would not perceive. It has been clear to you since you saw them stop the bullets fired from an Archer's guns: these dice are Assassin's Noble Phantasm. The real question is the type and level of power they must hold. "Don't worry a8out _that._ Come on, Kirei, don't you trust me?" This, you do not bother to dignify with a reply. She smirks. "Whatever. You'll see soon enough."

"Certainly I will. We will, however, remain where we are until there is a clear path to follow, regardless of your petty feelings." You turn away, walking halfway to the rear of the church before something stops you.

"So you're telling me," the Servant says, her voice unusually silky, "you're not 8ored out of your pan w8ing around this shitty place all night? That just exploring for a while, may8e finding some things out with a little...", smugness swirling into every syllable, "_luck?_ You'd rather just sit around staring at these 8oring walls in this 8oring place w8ing for your 8oring friend rather than going out to see things with your own eyes?"

Why do her words seem to carry a growing compulsion? Why, after so much work and agony refining yourself as a logical person, does part of you seem to believe that you do want to venture out with your Servant, that there is something to be gained by risking the disruption of whatever plans Tokiomi is making?

"So you're telling me," she says for a second time, "that you're not 8ored right now? Not even a _little 8it_?"

With her horns in the way, holes must be cut to allow a cowl to fit her head, but as long as her face is covered, most will mistake her as someone merely wearing an odd costume, though there is much risk in any case, though she claims 'the risk is what makes it fun.' You will grant her that it certainly complicates what would otherwise be overly simple.

The sound of heavy, familiar doors grinding open has never seemed so _correct_. Assassin gestures impatiently at the city that lies beyond, clusters of light sleeping beneath a thick blanket of rain, and you consider reconsidering... but you don't, because your Servant is right and you know it.

Kotomine Kirei, Master of Assassin, has not the slightest desire to remain bored.

* * *

Saber stays quiet for most of the ride into the city, staring out the window at the glittering asphalt, concrete, the swirl of dark clouds overhead. Sometimes you'll comment on a storefront that catches your eye, all sorts of interesting things, but he doesn't respond to any of it. You're probably bothering him at this point, but there's just so much to take in that you can't help yourself. But after a while... It's not even important, whatever it is you were marveling at, but it must have been something that struck a chord with _him._

"... You the type that just never shuts up 'cause the whole world's, like, _beautiful_, man, nah, hey, y'all just skipped me, quit fuckin' up the rotation, no wait never mind, holy shit bro, I just remembered Moonflower's got shrooms, who else wants to go skinny dippin' out behind the trailer, all starin' at boobs like it ain't no thing, half a dozen dongs swingin' in the breeze and floatin' around like gravity's on vacation – or do you just spend all your damn time in Christmasville, playin' it like some fairy tale princess waitin' to get boned in a giant stone pork sword, I _mean_ in the fairy tale sense 'cause y'all's weird-ass castle don't count, that shit's a bigass schizophrenic lego house. I think. Like, all the little pillars holdin' up the floors are pretty much tan bannanas and then the roof's just thrustin' even more yogurt cannons at the sky like it's _really_ compensatin' for somethin' –"

Maybe you're _really _starting to get why this kid and Kiritsugu don't get along. He's really not the type to mesh at all with people who talk a lot, especially ones who talk... however you'd even try to describe Saber's colorful monologues. The nice thing is that this is one preference that you and your husband don't share.

"Saber, your imagery is a little bit... I mean..." You have to cover your mouth to hide your searing blush and embarrassed smile, even though it's obviously reaching your eyes and that's more than enough for almost anybody to see, let alone a Servant, maybe especially a weird one. "There's a little bit of a pattern there?"

"Girl, you makin' fun of my wiener-based worldview? Awful intolerant, you know, I mean that's just rude, I spent years workin' on my own religion, the Holy Brotherhood of the Wavin' Sky-Dong, please don't take offense at the Brotherhood part, it's a stand-in until I think up a better word so _everybody _got a wang or dreams of wangin' it has a place there, it'd be like a freaky cult but without the Kool-Aid and also nobody knows how to shut the fuck up about peckers, you know, a shelter for other folks with the Post-Freud Meat Rod Fever, well... I guess..." No, you were wrong, or sort of wrong, at least. There's a much more important pattern than the one you've been noticing.

"You must have been very close to whoever you lost," you say. "I'm sorry."

Perfect stillness. There's only the rain, still turning everything black-slicked and shining, and no film you've ever seen could do justice being here for the real thing.

"Who said I fuckin' lost anybody."

"I think you said it to me just now, didn't you? Part of you is waiting for someone to respond. Didn't you realize that you pause for just a moment every so often so that a familiar person can fill in the blanks and make it into a conversation?"

"Shut up," he says, wearily, so you don't.

"Please, bringing up painful memories wasn't the point. Please don't be hurt."

"I ain't _'hurt'_, so stop tryin' to psychoanalyze – fuckin' –"

"You were right," you say. "This whole trip has been very special. It's the first time I've ever left the castle." He seems to slump back against his seat. "Kiritsugu showed me all sorts of things, it isn't as if I don't know anything. I had just never seen it with my own – "

"Yo, car guy, pull the fuck over. Like, _now_ is the time I'm talkin' about." Shocked and confused, you decide to see what he's doing before you say anything foolish. After parking, he gets out of the car, circles to your side, and opens the door.

"Aren't people all saying that chivalry's dead these days?"

"Deader than Kennedy's double-ghost. Guess I just feel like... somebody oughta be tryin' to stay cool. And like I said, I'm a – I used to be a Knight, dependin' on how you use the word. Not like it did anybody any good." He doesn't look at you when he holds out a hand to take, and he doesn't notice the pity hiding inside of how touched you honestly are.

"I don't know about that," you say. "I think you're doing just fine."

"Uh huh. For now, maybe. I quit bein' a Knight the day I died." Walking by you along the sidewalk, he tilts his head down a few degrees. "You don't get to call yourself a Knight if you can't even die _after_ protectin' somebody. If you die like a goddamned idiot before you can save even one person." This is where he'll go quiet for hours again, you just know it, and you've decided that from now on, you refuse to let him.

"Don't you think that just trying matters?" He snorts. "Saber, I think you're too hard on yourself."

"Nah, no boners here. I mean, I can go double-check if you want? Seems kinda awkward to me."

"You're just like him," you say, ignoring the sense that a joke just flew right over your head. "He won't even consider forgiving himself."

"I am _nothin'_ like that fuckin' asshole," he says, and he's wrong, but you won't press _that _point too far. You might, later, but not yet.

"What's more important is that this is amazing! Saber, you might not be able to change your past, but you have a chance to be alive again. I think it's the future and the present you should be thinking about. Not just the war, but how you want to live in these next few weeks, whatever your wish is, and don't tell me you don't have one again, I'm _not_ stupid. You don't have to talk about it, but don't just lie for no reason!"

His step falters and slows and you feel horrible for overstepping your bounds by so much. You didn't mean to just... You slow yourself, matching his pace, which recovers after a few seconds.

"Sorry," he says. "Just reminded me of somebody I used to know."

"Well, maybe that person had the right idea. There's no need to be so bitter. Life isn't fair, so we have to get as much out of it as we can, right? Why should you spend what time you have just remembering the bad things that happened?"

"Yeah," and you can feel his eyes on you from behind that gleaming black shield. "You'd have gotten along great. Woulda liked her in half a second. Looks like I gotta at least _try _not to fuck everythin' up this time, huh."

"Tell me about her?" He just keeps walking and you're sure he's set a trap for himself, that if you ask him he'll go silent on you again, because that's how he's trying to live: without living at all. "What was she like? Other than being someone I would have liked?"

You're glad that you're leading him in the direction you are. Even if he's seen it, and of course he has, you think the calm might do him some good. He doesn't seem like someone who deserves to be so wounded.

"She's dead," he says. "I told you I died before I could save anybody. What'd you expect?"

It's only now, you realize, that evening has become twilight, and twilight is leading the way to your first dark night in Fuyuki City. The nearest closing storefront's neon glow catches on a few stray drops of rain, tiny flickers of red in a sea of deepening shadows. It's a contrast you like, you think, this state in between light and dark, white and black, one made up of every color and one desperately holding them close, all in the same place.

There's not enough room under the umbrella you brought to cover two people, not really, but you'll accept some rain if it means keeping some off of him. You're walking too close now, knowing that at any moment Saber will move, say something, shove you away. There's no other possible outcome for someone so standoffish.

It's a long walk south to get to the shoreline, but even if it means getting half-soaked instead of staying mostly dry, sharing your umbrella with another person turns out to be something that makes you smile.


	6. Storm's Call To Silver Shores (3)

_._

_i heard your voice as clear as day_

_and you told me i should concentrate_

_it was all so strange and so surreal_

_that a ghost should be so practical_

_only if for a night_

_florence + the machine – only if for a night_

* * *

First, the Servant ran off on his own to get himself slaughtered... Maybe he could handle himself against the right opponent, but what are the odds of stumbling on that, and if he really won't attack a Master, he's only dooming himself further. The details are incredibly murky, but even before his death, it seems as though Lancer was low-class among his own people... whatever those actually are.

But that's just a matter of handling the _easy_ tool at your disposal. There's just as much chance, if not _more_, that '_Lord'_ El-Melloi is going to bring the Sword of Damocles that this war really is right down on both of your heads. This is where you start to have issues with the situation, because that imbecile wasting his own Servant and dying is one matter, but dragging you down with him? No, that's not how things end for you, not an ignoble end caught up in an idiot's struggle.

He _didn't even use a command seal. _Oh, you're all for conserving the things: vital to surviving the ritual, not to mention what they're made up of... There must be a way to preserve at least one beyond the end, and who knows what could be done with that kind of power? Part of you is almost proud that El-Melloi held back. Most of you can't believe he let this happen; the kinder approach didn't work, the contemptuous garbage noble's approach didn't work. What other course of action could have been taken to keep Lancer loyal, to quash his grating idealism? That's right, _using a command seal for its intended purpose. _Would that have been unfortunate? Of course it would, and you still think they should be kept close to the chest, but if one needs to be used, then it should be! Unbelievable.

You're probably very lucky to find a car to steal from a weak-minded person in the parking garage; it's late and there aren't many bodies outside of their rooms. Too far behind to know exactly where he went... you can work with this, considering where Lancer seemed to be headed. Drive north and park the car somewhere near whatever scene of carnage you'll be stumbling on. At least you could keep out of the rain, preserve _some_ of your dignity, although there's more to it than that. If you were someone else, you might brush away the uncomfortable feeling this storm is giving you, but you are, in fact, yourself, and this isn't the time to ignore your instincts. Something is very wrong there and the less of that rain you touch, the less you'll worry.

It's a nasty, bubbling sort of frustration, chasing someone without driving fast enough to attract attention or too slowly to miss your chance, and you might have missed something incredibly important if not for that little bit of anxiety keeping you alert.

For just a moment, a hint of a chill runs through you, and when you turn your head to find the cause, you realize you're about to pass by two impressively suspicious and conspicuous people. One of them is Kotomine Kirei, _still wearing his vestments? What?_ Is he _trying_ to be discovered?

... Could it be that he's actually _hoping_ to be discovered by someone?

It's not him you accidentally lock eyes with, however. It's the shorter figure, face half-hidden by the hood of _another_ conspicuous garment, orange horns blatantly jutting through holes in the fabric, gray skin that might not be noticed in the dark, though it's... not a very dark night. The light of the moon and stars doesn't feel like it should penetrate the thick cover of shifting clouds nearly this well.

Familiar orange eyes, a few words you can't hear – to the priest, or in reply to him? - then a widening, shark-toothed grin, and as you crush the gas pedal and leave them behind, nothing at all. You can't even find it in yourself to be angry that you're shaking and feeling somewhat sluggish, considering how close your brush with death must just have been, if it's even over; what's to say you aren't being followed? The side mirror tells you that you're not, but who gives a damn what a reflection says when something like this happens? You'll trust your own judgment, so you turn your head to really get a look.

Except that you don't turn your head. Can't turn it, the shaking is worse, now, struggling to keep your eyes open... is it that late?... at least try to get off of the pedal or... do... something, anything... As your head falls you... note... dim...ly... that your hands... slipping on the wheel... on the, the right, the side, the... front of a store... roar of the engine...

cold fingers slipping across... the surface of your mind?... your soul?... intangible, unavoidable... a blue haze consuming everything... and then...

...relaxing, claimed by exhaustion, and you hardly hear metal bend, glass become a razor shower, hardly feel several airbags inflating or the impact that lulls you, finally, into sleep.

* * *

You've already taken off your shoes, even if it catalyzed Saber into a meandering 'public service announcement' that ended with his confident statement that for every fifty grains of sand on a beach, there's one abandoned hypodermic needle lurking in the hopes of claiming its victims (though his wording was much more... colorful). The sand in question feels so strange, this combination of solid grit and damp give, and even if there were imaginary needles everywhere, it's worth the 'risk.' It isn't like you're going to have another chance to feel sand between your toes, anyway.

Oh. Oh, no.

And suddenly you feel horribly guilty, because Saber has obviously made it his own duty to protect you; somehow you doubt his willingness had much, if anything, to do with his nature as a Servant... Saber, who already seems to hate himself with passion after failing to save a person – maybe more than one person – important to him, who he wanted, probably more than anything, to keep out of harm's way. Saber, who gave his life trying to save another, and considers himself a failure rather than the hero he clearly is.

Saber, whose current charge is a woman actually _guaranteed_ to die within the next two or so weeks at most. You've forced someone who's run out of time into the hands of someone who you think will find a way to blame himself.

It isn't that part of you doesn't hope that somehow, against all logic, you'll survive. It isn't as if you _want_ to die. But it's something you came to terms with a very long time ago, and no matter what Kiritsugu did... You're not even close to being a pessimist, but you know that he – and Saber – can't change fate, the inevitable.

Maybe if he hadn't done what he did, you wouldn't be starting to feel afraid of death again, a little thorn of fluttery discomfort that's slowly getting bigger already. The outside world is incredible, and you don't want to just...

"I guess Jade wasn't just hypin' things up about this shit after all," Saber mumbles to himself. "Goddamn. Almost makes a guy wish _he_ got to be the kid who grew up alone on an island in the middle of fuck-off nowhere." Where _did_ he grow up, you wond – wait.

That was a name. _'Jade.'_

Is she (you assume it's a she?) the one you remind him of? The one you're starting to think was the final nail in the coffin of his self-worth? It occurs to you that, whether he was involved or not, _everyone _Saber has ever known must be dead, and it hurts how clear it is that hugging him until at least one of you starts crying is just not an option.

"It's beautiful, isn't it," you say quietly, his head twitching in your general direction, like he'd almost forgotten he wasn't alone. "I heard all life in this world started in the ocean... I suppose it's fitting, isn't it?" Your clothes might get a bit wet and gritty, but you've been walking for a long time; you can't see the moon through the clouds, not really, but its glow still turns a patch of twisting sky silver and otherworldly, so you sit down where the shore starts to slope up and away.

"Yeah, well. The sea ain't exactly somethin' I'm used to feelin' chill about." Hands in his pockets, staring out at a dim horizon, your desire to just see his eyes is moving from mild and nervous to a state of simple frustration. It's sad, really, the way you think he uses those sunglasses to try to hide himself, and just as sad that he thinks it's working. "Knowin' what it meant to – dammit. Guess it's sort of ironic in all the wrong ways how the ocean killed off every single person on the planet except for two."

What... do you even say to that? He seems like he has more to say himself, and it turns out that he does, which really saves you from what might have been a horribly awkward moment. Saber sits down nearby, crossing his arms, leaning back to stare into the rain.

"You ever kinda... feel like the world's supposed to be so full of life it blows your mind, but everywhere you actually go, all you see is all that life around you comin' to stupid, shitty ends?"

"I think I might, a little bit," you say, head flooding with memories, countless others discarded without a second thought, watching your own kind bred, found wanting, destroyed...

"Sorry," he says. "I think I thought you were gonna say no." The sunglasses might as well be worthless right now. Saber doesn't want to be isolated like that, does he? He wouldn't let so much slip if he did.

Does he just think that he doesn't deserve anything but loneliness, anymore?

"Sorry," you say, and laugh just a little bit. "I wish I had a happier answer."

"Yeah, you and me both," he says, and then silence.

You let him have that silence for a minute or two. Pushing is one thing, but pushing too hard isn't what you want at all. Still, it's about as much time as you need to gather your own thoughts and feelings, melancholy and strange.

"Are you ever going to ask about my eyes?"

"Huh?"

They aren't hard to miss. You know perfectly well that he's seen the clear, inhuman red; what you don't know is if he knows what they mean, or if he would care. You sit up straighter and look right at his sunglasses.

"No, I wasn't, 'cause it ain't really my business," he says, a bit sharply. Hmm. You take a breath.

"I'm a homunculus," you say. "My life is only here because Elder Acht and the others made a breakthrough they might never make again. If I hadn't been given a purpose before I was even created, I wouldn't exist." For some reason, a small smile is on your face, and it's not really the bitter kind, you think. "I'm honestly not even a real human being."

He sits up, slowly. _Hesitantly_, which isn't something you've seen from him much at all. You're still looking into the black mirrors he's never taken off. You wonder what comes next.

Saber raises a hand towards his face, stops, moves, stops. Rain runs down the sunglasses, drips, beaded with drops that shine just slightly in the half-cloaked moonlight. Then, in one smooth motion, he plucks them off, almost delicately, raising them up and to his side where they suddenly disappear, punctuated by a muted click.

Red eyes stare into red eyes for a long time before he turns away, watches waves surge gently and then break away into foam.

"Don't ever say a stupid goddamned thing like that again," a boy who died young and a hero bites off. "'Cause if you ain't human, then I guess I ain't ever been friends with a 'real human being' in my life."

It's okay with you that tears have started to run down your face, even if it's a shock. What he means, who he knew, who he is, where he came from... you can't answer any of those questions, but they're only secondary concerns, now. You get back up, meander to where the ocean meets the earth. The water's cold and clouded with grit and bits of seaweed, and your little gasp at the sudden chill turns out to be the start of one of the most oddly peaceful moments of your existence, time gone slow in the silver-black of a moonlit tide and the rain that feels so weird and refreshing.

Saber doesn't follow, but he watches, and even from ten or fifteen feet away, you can see the sad smile that his mouth hides but his eyes all but write out in neon red. Well, if he's someone who wants to hide his feelings, you suppose he knew perfectly well what he was doing when he chose the armor he so diligently tries to maintain. The world is so quietly cinematic, you think, like a story that writes itself, the weird, erratic pacing its only serious issue.

He feels it a split second before you, and as you whip your head partially to the side to follow the sensation you see Saber flicker from sitting to standing in a cloud of disturbed sand. The Knight reaches out to nothing once again, and with an unsettling pop, the sunglasses are back in his hand and almost instantly over his eyes once again.

You meet the eyes you know are watching and give him a small nod, which he returns with one corner of his mouth just slightly tugged up. A hiss fills the air as something takes form in his right hand. His sword, you assume; Saber does bear the title and the vessel for a reason.

"_**Caledscratch,"**_ he says, the blade coalescing in his hand to rest on his shoulder, and it's like nothing you've ever seen. A two-handed grip, a clean white square-shaped guard with black, needle-like protrusions from each side. The long, heavy blade dips and narrows around halfway, like it's slotted in place and kept there by some internal mechanism. But the thing that you notice most is the design on that guard, a red and black record, the same record on his shirt, minus the jagged break through the center.

As his outfit shifts into the red-cloaked something he'd worn when he was summoned, the sword's record decoration turns out not to be a decoration at all, spinning with an audible buzz for a moment before settling into a slow, steady rotation.

... But why did he need to speak its true name just to _materialize_ his weapon? Shouldn't he only have to do that if he's activating a Noble Phantasm's special ability?

"Someone seems to want company," you say, fixing your attention on the docks and shipping crates somewhat nearby. "Shall we go and say hello?"

"Rock 'n Roll McDonalds," Saber says, mystifying you completely, but at this point, you really just don't mind at all.

* * *

It's strange. Maybe it's a bit of a cliche to get aches in the joints before it rains – and, of course, _while_ it rains, which one hears less of – but once you've shot past about sixty five, you start to learn just how many cliches can end up being real personal. That's not to say it's a hundred percent consistent, but a rain like this one, not doing a thing? Well, you won't be losing any sleep over it, but what has you thinking isn't just that. You've always been fond of rain and you still are, joints be damned, and you shouldn't complain, but... Isn't it a little too _bright _out for a downpour like this?

In any case, it's a bit late. She's used to your little peculiarities, but you really should be following Martha upstairs soon. Instead, you spend a while reading at the table, listening to the sound of raindrops through the window. At least, you try to read, but odd thoughts are nagging at you. There's something about this friend of Waver's that just doesn't sit right with you.

A boy like that... He's older than he looks, sure, but traveling the globe without any objective in sight after his father's death? And finding that lifestyle appealing? Oh, it's far from impossible. You just don't quite believe that's all there is to the story. He's a good kid, but you're an old man, and even if it wasn't the most suitable occupation in the long run, a guy doesn't keep a business going for forty years without building up at least a _little _skill at reading people.

You sigh and idly stir a few marshmallows floating at the top of your still-steaming mug. The look in the poor bastard's eyes... _'it's really fine, I had friends friends to help me get through it.' _Probably so, but he didn't look like someone who'd dealt with that grief very well. You know it's only been a few years, but when he had to remember that the man who gave him so many absurd and precious memories was gone for good, you'd all but swear you could _see _old wounds open up again.

It's a good thing, to accept what's happened when you're able, but you don't think he really is. Seems more like he's kept as much of that sorrow buried as he can manage, and it hurts to see it. There's more to that story than he was willing to tell – fair enough, you certainly won't begrudge someone their privacy – and those eyes... they've seen more than just one tragedy, you'd put money on that.

A thump from upstairs catches your attention, followed by quiet muttering, and the boy in question comes into view, dragging your grandson down the stairs. You catch his gaze and he shoots you a quick, oddly guilty smile.

_I can't explain myself and I'm sorry I got Waver involved, but I swear he won't get hurt._

No one his age should be able to say so much without speaking a single word, let alone with a _glance_. There are really only two situations you can think to compare. The first is yourself and Martha; a marriage doesn't stay happy throughout a full life without practiced communication.

The second is the occasional chat with older folks like yourself, but it's not just anyone. No, it's the men who'll always end up mentioning 'the war,' whatever war any one guy's talking about, the ones who've seen and maybe done things that haunt a a soldier all the way into his grave.

Who _are_ you, John Egbert, other than a cheerful teenage friend of Waver's, and what happened abroad to let the kid put so much trust in your grandson that he chose to come to this little town when he clearly had nowhere else to go?

If nothing else, you're proud of Waver. Whatever went on between those two, this John fellow trusted him enough to end up here when he was obviously running out of options, and to you, that speaks volumes.

"Sorry, Grandpa, there's – god, you can stop _dragging_ already – this bloody idiot's dead set on taking a walk in the rain, we'll be back before you know it –"

What're you gonna do other than wave and worry as your guest and grandson pass by the table and disappear into the night? You sigh at the door clicking shut behind them, and you worry, wonder, and try to trust your family as best you can. Martha must be asleep by now and you're glad for it, because this way at least only one of you has to spend the night downstairs, fingers crossed, waiting for Waver to come home safe and sound.

* * *

"Well I'll be goddamned if it ain't somebody I... kinda remember a little bit. Hell's your name again? The handle I'll never forget, that was just too fuckin' perfect, you know I backed that conversation up, right? Some of my best work right there."

"for th1s l1fe 1 th1nk, that my name 1s 1rrelevant, and 1t would be really hard, to forget who you are, when there are almost as many of you 1n the bubbles as arad1a,"

You're really not sure what unnerves you more: Saber's weapon, which is definitely not the one he used to mutilate the castle roof days ago, or the enemy Servant. What the hell _is _he and why the hell does he know Saber? You don't even bother trying to decipher the comment about 'bubbles,' not yet, at least.

But somehow's it the fact that this Servant is in a _wheelchair _that makes you wish you could do much more than try to eliminate enemy masters and keep an eye on the area. You just hope Saber isn't stupid enough to underestimate him for it. Dammit, is that a Lancer or a Rider? The Servant might qualify for either, leaving the question of whether his Noble Phantasm is that short jousting lance, the wheelchair he's in, or something else entirely.

\- RECOMMENDED FIGHT MUSIC: tinyurl dot com /qfpo8l2 –

With a dizzying pull from Saber, your magic circuits cough up enough power to show he's preparing for a real fight, whatever he does or doesn't know. You wouldn't have any issue with that if it was the _only _thing to happen in this moment, but for a second your sight is flooded with bright red, and something like a flood of molten sparks – _what the hell – _blasts right back through your circuits, almost knocking the rifle out of your hands with the shock.

ah he!l t_*s aint &amp;he los$r i r!mem/er won^er what ti%$l## hes ;r{m

Deep breath. Calm down, dammit. This isn't the time to i` %t s+-ll m5r7er w##n the o%$h4 g_ys ^echni{ll3 a-read! d3&amp;d be caught off guard by some kind of unexpected mana feedback. Sweep the area. You have visuals on the main players at the moment, but if someone else is watching... Well, at the moment, you don't see anyone, so you can take a moment to scan the enemy Servant. You _don't _like what you see. Saber is powerful in almost every basic sense... m^n ^$ t*!s a$#h\e g%d t/e4 but only slightly more than Lancer/Rider, and you still don't know anything about _Saber's_ Noble Phantasm, let alone this guy's.

Maybe you should say Noble Phantasms, plural. There is one whose effects you know very, very well, and it will not surprise you in the least if he turns out to possess even more.

"Ain't that just great. You really want to fight to the death for some random asshole? Doesn't sound like your style, dude."

"see, 1 would really l1ke, for th1s dumb al1en th1ng to be over sooner rather than later, and also, at least 1 have someth1ng to f1ght for aga1n, even 1f that th1ng 1s really stup1d, because 1f 1 have to ex1st aga1n 1 guess that, at least 1 can dec1de to matter a little bit 1n a world that hasn't turned 1nto garbage, for once,"

"Alright, bro. Your funeral."

There's a pause for a second or two, quiet and unsettling, and suddenly Saber is flickering sideways as some invisible force begins ripping up the concrete under his feet. He seems unscathed, but in a rush of... it must be gathering wind, _you_ can feel it even up here, the enemy Servant blasts forward at an almost equally insane speed, riding a cushion of disturbed air – he's driven Saber into a disadvantageous position. Whatever that first attack was, it looks like it had mostly been a bluff, and your own Servant is already being intercepted. You wince inwardly as sword and lance meet, and Saber's only barely able to divert the force to the side. It's a hell of a thing; you could almost swear you felt the impact yourself.

... Did you actually feel it yourself? Are you imagining things, or do your wrists and arms ache just a little bit, all of a sudden?

But something about the deflection is _odd_. The enemy Servant seems to _stutter_ for a split second, somehow reminding you of glitchy VHS footage, and Saber takes advantage to slash back, almost landing a blow before the white sword is buffeted away by an invisible force, manipulated air, you're definitely sure of that now, and even Saber himself is put off balance by the nature of the defense. The enemy Servant is gone in another explosion of wind, jetting away before circling tightly around and rushing in for a second stab. It's not a very versatile weapon, that lance, but he clearly makes up for the weakness with his apparent control over the atmosphere. Saber is _fast_, you realize, probably notably fast even for a Servant with his rough parameters, but instead of simply dodging, he dodges while making sure to take some of the blow with his blade even though he shouldn't need to.

You realize why when, immediately upon actual weapon-to-weapon contact, the wind-powered Servant seems to be, for another split second, hitching up against reality. A spinning record, imagery of gears, and the Noble Phantasm he used at the Einzbern castle...

In that barely noticeable moment, Saber gains just enough of an advantage to put a thin slice into the other Servant's side; the injury looks trivial, but it's a start, and the stutter that accompanies the blow leaves you completely sure what Saber's blade is capable of. You know enough about manipulating time yourself, and along with everything else you know, the most logical explanation is that every time the Noble Phantasm comes in contact with an enemy or apparently even their weapon, that enemy is frozen in time for just barely the fraction of a second that can tilt a battle in Saber's favor.

Frankly, it's terrifying. Being a slave to time in the slightest when you've practiced so much to gain some control over time within your own body... It makes the idea even more disturbing, somehow.

You fail to keep a vicious smirk entirely off your face. Things might be working out after all; seems you really do have one hell of a weapon, here.

Making your way through cover to another rooftop vantage point, you're surprised by how much of a fight this is actually gonna be. The hit and run shit, sure, but there's obviously more to him than that. Shit, third run, and you don't quite angle your block right but it's enough. And any Page who gets anywhere with their power starts to be a fuckin' problem one way or another. You are really not happy to be dealing with goddamned Hurricane Toreador, especially when you're already gimped just by this whole system. At least you're, like, 99% sure he's a Lancer. Dude had robo-legs in half his deaths, so Rider seems like a long shot.

If Lancer's Master's been stupid enough to come here, you can't find them through your rifle, at least not yet. The only things showing up through your scope are yourself, Lancer, and finally Iri in the background, being thankfully ignored for the moment. At least you remember enough about Lancer to be able to pin down his class early on. Saber is still holding his own and more, although he's only landed scratches so far; you're frustrated, but Lancer is nothing like any version of him you've met, so who knows what he's been through and how tough he's become? You can't fault yourself for struggling at least a bit against a pretty worthwhile enemy, but every time he makes the same charge and you knock it aside yet again, you wonder why he hasn't done anything else. All the better for you – hopefully – but Saber had better not get caught off guard.

This Welsh piece of shit isn't broken, which pisses you off, the balance and weight feels all wrong in your grip, but you like its effect anyway. Saber wouldn't be much of a Knight if he couldn't exploit his #W^! * to bolster his natural fighting ability.

_Fuck _#!^! #$%$*i79y6347w~]]]], you knew something was coming, but he's straight up _on point_ with this shit and you are not even close to ready when a little gust of wind blows the latest grinding impact's angry sparks right into your face. Stiller protects even to this day, thanks for the ten billionth time, John, so they don't really cause any damage to your eyes directly, but the distraction –

All the way from the rooftops you can feel yourself take a speeding truck's worth of pure displaced air right to the gut and smash halfway through a cargo crate twenty feet to Lancer's side. Cursing under your breath, you watch uselessly from above as you feel something move through the concrete dust and also regular dust kicked up by your shitty-ass landing, and the insane force of whatever blackish-green spike pierces the cloud before it grinds off your failed block and misses by so little that your hair actually stings from being pulled by the wind in its wake. Holy shit.

It's not the first time in your life that one of your shoulders has been dislocated, enough time spent as a mercenary teaches you a whole lot about getting injured, but that doesn't stop the pain from almost costing your grip on the gun when your other arm moves half by instinct to the horrible feeling of bone scraping on bone where it really isn't meant to. Your shoulder is fine, obviously, but Saber's isn't, and he's... well, respect where it's due; the kid knows how to snap it all back in place despite the momentary surge of agony, but he isn't ready for the claw-like vortex that tears him out and back into the open, trying to re-orient yourself in midair goddammit fucking shit and the hit that comes from behind you, the last place Saber could see it coming, lands right in the small of his back and sends you painfully crashing into another cargo container on the opposite side of the whole place and as you look quickly back over your shoulder – the fuck knows what he's going for _now –_ the crumpled steel is dripping vermilion. Oh, shit. It's probably because there's a lance-sized hole blown through your side.

When you hit the hard ground on your knees and try to swallow your own blood, you realize that Saber is in serious trouble; a horrified Irisviel is healing you as fast as she can, but it $#%^ % hurts like #%$ a _bitch _and you do what you always do.

"Fuck it," you cough, copper on your tongue, and Saber launches right at Lancer who looks like he wasn't expecting such a fast recovery because this time you nail him hard with the flat of Caledscratch and knock him clear out of his wheelchair before retching another swell of blood onto the concrete.

"Just hang on, Saber!" Irisviel is yelling, but it's hard to hear because suddenly there are wind currents gathering all around you and Time is whispering death into your ears. Through the suddenly blurred currents you can hear another voice, much louder or maybe just projected better through the hurricane.

"okay, 1'm done w1th th1s nonsense, so, sorry for th1s, 1 guess,"

Damn it, Saber can't see right, but from above it's easy enough to follow what's happening. Wheelchair bent and discarded, Lancer is effortlessy levitating on cushions of wind, ten feet above the ground. How the hell does this weird horned kid qualify for one of the knight classes? Realizing that somehow he's retrieved his bizarre lance doesn't make things any better. At its rear it's unlocked itself, strips of tight metal splaying outward, probably so it can catch even more wind; you're pretty sure he's able to launch that thing like a harpoon, and that has to be the black and green flicker that took a huge chunk out of Saber's guts, to judge by the streaks of fresh blood running down its contours.

"you are an alr1ght guy, mostly, so try to forg1ve me for how much th1s w1ll probably hurt before you finally d1e,"

As Saber is pulled almost helplessly into the air and swirls of concrete and metal are being carved at random into the ground and nearby crates, Iri trying to shield herself against the vicious weather and even the drops of rain being launched in every direction land hard enough to cause pain, if not actual injury, salvation comes in its usual form: the appearance of an idiot.

"_Lancer,"_ somebody spits from the shadows, _"Finish it here."_

Maiya should be somewhere with a good view by now, you can't pick out the Master just yet but she must be in a position to take him out and there must be a way out of this, you _cannot_ let yourself lose and you sure as _hell _won't waste your Servant in his first battle.

Even you can see blue swirls of pure mana gathering in the air. Lancer is about to unleash something massive, maybe another Noble Phantasm – is it just the lance, or –

**_"dance of the –"_**

_Nobody_ sees the hammer coming until Lancer is already smashed straight down into a new crater that's at least two feet deep. You – no, Saber, no – the winds disperse and Saber lands, breathing hard. There's no time to think about whatever Servant just inadvertently rescued him, but...

If you can just hold out a little bit longer, maybe you'll all live long enough to figure out _what the hell is wrong with Dr. DeathGuy – no – _NO, long enough to figure out _what the hell's going on in your own head._

\- END FIGHT MUSIC -

* * *

"Well, now. What an interesting path to cross. Any thoughts on the situation?"

Shit. Nothing's ever as simple as it should be, is it?

The invisible trail of whatever it is Berserker's been following now has the both of you on top of a two-story building, looking down on a really horrific car wreck. The driver plowed straight into a store, and somehow you doubt it's just a coincidence.

"Think this is involved with the war?" You do have your doubts, but it's honestly a coin toss whether or not it was. "It did sort of happen out of absolutely nowhere. Did the driver just pass out at the wheel?"

"Not _quite_ right. Close, perhaps. And yes, it's clearly related; that nasty little snarl of metal there is positively _dripping _with residual mana. Ah, the culprit arrives!... Oh my. It really has been quite some time since I've had the displeasure of encountering _her. She _certainly does make the cause of that 'accident' obvious."

At first you still weren't sure what to think, but when you see it now, it's unmistakable. A Servant in a patchwork 'disguise,' with what look like _horns_ jutting from above a ragged hood. Even with the clothing, though, she (you assume?) seems to radiate... a sort of white-gold aura. It's nothing visible, more like an unstoppable air of weird majesty that leaves you seriously uneasy. Something tells you this was not a lucky encounter. At least, not lucky for _you._

Next to her is... wait, is that her _Master_, just walking alongside her – is that _the Overseer's son? _Of all the Masters to move so recklessly, you wouldn't have seen _that_ coming. He isn't even disguised! It's like he just got _bored_ or something and wandered off to get killed. The two of them are headed for the wreck, which they definitely caused; why did you even bother doubting Berserker? At this point you might as well accept that she's going to be right about pretty much everything.

"Our first skirmish, perhaps?"

You take one more look at the damage they've wrought and narrow your eye.

"Yeah," you say, "But it can't last long. If this drags on we have to run. Whatever piece of _shit_ has Sakura right now, we _aren't_ giving them time to get away."

"An excellent outline, Kariya-san. Then I will endeavor to end this embarrassment of a person as swiftly as possible." She must know that the enemy Servant can sense... yeah, there it is. Devilish orange eyes flick up to your perch, and in the shadow of the hood you can see a too-wide grin filled with way too many shark-like teeth and fangs... and for some reason you're filled with the weird feeling that this was inevitable. Like it's your fate, or something, or maybe just the only true path out of countless false possibilities.

Every second you spend _not _searching for Sakura is a second you can't spare, but as Berserker's needles slip into her hands and a familiar sadistic smirk twists her lips, you get the feeling that this really won't take long at all.

* * *

_Servant Sheets Update: imgur dot com /a/QcCxj_

Assemble URL at your leisure.


End file.
